^Ae  Religion 
of  the  Psalms 


BS  1430  .S55 

Smith,  J.  M.  Powis  1866-1932 

The  religion  of  the  Psalms 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  PSALMS 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


TH£  BAKER  AND  TAYLOR  COMPANY 

KBW  TOBK 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON 

THE  MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 

tOETO,  OSAKA,    KIOTO,    FUKDOKA,   SBNDAI 

THE  MISSION  BOOK  COMPANY 

SHAMSHAI 


THE    RELIGION  OF 
THE  PSALMS 


By    y 
J.  M.  POWIS  SMITH 

Profesior  of  Old  Testament  Language  and  Literature 
in  the  University  of  Chicago 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


Copyright  igaj  By 
The  University  of  Chicago 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Published  March  igaa 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicag:o  Press 

Chicaso.  Illinois.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

Books  about  the  Psalms  come  and  go; 
the  Psalms  go  on  forever.  They  belong  to 
the  permanent  literature  of  the  race. 
They  express  felicitously  and  adequately 
the  great  emotions  of  mankind.  They 
display  a  faith  that  passes  knowledge, 
an  invincible  confidence  in  the  goodness  of 
God  that  survived  successive  shocks  test- 
ing it  to  the  uttermost.  The  genuine, 
heartfelt  religion  of  the  Psalter  has  never 
failed  to  kindle  the  spirit  of  the  faithful. 

The  aim  of  this  book  is  to  bring  out 
the  significance  of  the  Psalms  as  indicative 
of  the  religious  and  moral  standards  of 
later  Judaism.  There  is  no  attempt  here 
to  find  in  the  Psalms  spiritual  nourishment 
for  the  life  of  today.  The  effort  is  rather 
to  present  the  meaning  of  the  Psalms  as  it 
lay  in  the  minds  of  their  authors  and 
earliest  readers.  Probably  no  book  has 
suffered  more  from  a  conventionalized 
interpretation  than  the  Psalter.    We  need 


vi  Preface 

frequently  to  return  to  the  original  source 
of  the  stream  of  interpretation  and  start 
afresh.  No  conventionalized  Psalter  can 
ever  have  the  virility  and  freshness  of  the 
real  Psalter. 

It  is  because  of  this  desire  to  preserve 
as  much  as  possible  the  original  atmos- 
phere of  the  Psalter  that  the  form  "Yah- 
weh"  is  used  instead  of  "Lord."  This  is, 
approximately  at  least,  the  original  pro- 
nunciation of  the  name  more  commonly 
known  as  "Jehovah.''  The  latter  form 
has  gathered  to  itself  a  connotation  that 
never  attached  to  Yahweh  and  that  inter- 
feres with  any  historical  appreciation  of 
the  Hebrew  God. 

In  the  quotations  of  poetical  passages 
from  the  Psalter  and  elsewhere,  I  have 
ofter  ventured  to  use  translations  of  my 
own.  This  has  been  done,  not  with  the 
thought  that  they  are  better  than  other 
renderings,  but  with  the  desire  to  bring 
the  thoughts  and  aspirations  of  these 
Hebrew  poets  before  the  reader's  mind  in 
a  somewhat   new  and   unfamiliar  dress. 


Preface  vii 

Thus  they  may  more  successfully  challenge 
attention  and  secure  respect  and  admi- 
ration. 

Some  of  the  chapters  of  this  book  have 
been  used  as  lectures  for  general  audiences. 
The  favorable  reception  accorded  them 
emboldens  me  to  send  them  out  to  a  larger 
circle.  May  they  contribute  something 
to  the  quickening  of  an  intelligent  interest 
in  the  religious  poetry  of  Israel. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I.  The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple 


II.  The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  .     . 

III.  Suffering  and  Song      .... 

IV.  The  Psalms  and  Immortality 

V.  The.  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms  . 


Appendix.    A  List  of  the  Best  Books 
the  General  Reader    .... 


Subject  Index       .     .     .     . 
Index  of  Biblical  Passages 


FOR 


PA<UB 

I 

33 

63 

96 

129 

159 
163 

i6s 


THE  HYMN  BOOK  OF  THE  SECOND 
TEMPLE 

Every  piece  of  literature  must  be  inter- 
preted and  estimated  in  the  light  of  the 
times  and  circumstances  amid  which  it 
came  into  being,  and  with  reference  to  the 
purpose  that  produced  it.  The  Psalter 
claims  no  exemption  from  the  operation 
of  this  rule.  By  reason  of  long-continued 
use,  attended  by  a  wholly  uncritical 
attitude  of  mind,  the  Psalms  have  come  to 
acquire  a  conventional  significance  and  a 
timeless  value.  But  if  we  would  know 
the  Psalter  as  it  really  is  and  venerate  it 
for  its  worth's  sake,  we  must  look  into  its 
original  purpose  and  use  in  order  to  recover 
its  original  spirit.  By  such  a  search,  the 
Psalter  loses  nothing  of  its  real  value  and 
gains  much  in  the  way  of  intelligibility  and 
freshness. 

That  the  Psalter  was  the  hymn  book 
of    the   Second   Temple   has    long    been 


2  The  Religion  of  tJie  Psalms 

recognized  by  scholars.  The  e\ddence  of 
such  usage  is  convincing.  Psalms  were  sung 
regularly  in  connection  with  the  tamidh, 
i.e.,  the  daily  burnt  offering  (Dan.  8:  ii  ff.). 
The  musical  annotations  contained  in  so 
many  of  the  superscriptions  are  most 
easily  accounted  for  as  instructions  for 
the  leaders  of  the  temple  choir.  The 
Books  of  Chronicles  give  a  large  place  to 
the  "singers''  in  the  temple  ritual  (I  Chron. 
9:4-34;  15:16-24),  and  speak  positively 
in  several  cases  of  the  use  of  musical  instru- 
ments and  psalms  in  public  worship.  In 
I  Chron.  16:4-36,  for  example,  reference 
is  made  to  arrangements  for  the  musical 
part  of  the  services  and  Psalm  96  is  given 
in  full  as  one  of  the  songs  sung.  Parts  of 
Psalms  105  and  106  are  associated  with  it. 
Hymn  books,  however,  fall  out  of  use 
unless  they  are  kept  up  to  date.  The 
history  of  our  own  hymnology  is  illuminat- 
ing at  this  point.  We  do  not  and  cannot 
sing  the  hymns  our  fathers  sang,  unless 
they  meet  the  needs  of  our  own  souls  and 
accord  with  the  aesthetic  and  theological 


The  Hymn  Book  of  tJte  Second  Temple    3 

standards  of  our  day.  Consequently  the 
old  hymnals  are  continually  revised.  Some 
hymns  are  entirely  omitted  as  unsuitable 
to  our  age,  while  others  are  modified  in 
such  a  way  as  to  render  them  unobjection- 
able. No  longer  ago  than  1818  a.d.  a 
hymn  from  the  New  Light  movement 
among  Methodists,  Baptists,  and  Presby- 
terians had  these  two  lines: 

I  know  not  any  sect  or  part, 

But  such  as  are  New  Lights  in  heart. 

Nine  years   before   that,   a   certain   Mr. 

Parkinson,  feeling  that  the  hymns  of  his 

day    were    unendurably    bad,    issued    a 

"revised    and    improved"    edition.     One 

of  his  refrains  ran  as  follows : 

Then  be  entreated  now  to  stop, 
For  unless  you  warning  take, 
Ere  you  are  aware  you'll  drop 
Into  the  burning  lake. 

A  Baptist  hymnal  published  by  Joshua 

Smith  in  1784  was  capable  of  this: 

The  tree  of  life  my  soul  hath  seen, 
Laden  with  fruit  and  always  green; 
The  trees  of  nature  fruitless  be, 
Compared  with  Christ  the  Apple  Tree. 


4  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

No  less  a  hymn  writer  than  Isaac  Watts, 
many  of  whose  hymns  we  still  delight  to 
use,  issued  a  collection  in  the  year  1707 
from  which  the  following  gruesome  bit 
is  taken: 

There  the  dark  earth  and  gloomy  shades 
Shall  clasp  their  naked  body  round, 
And  welcome  their  delicious  limbs 
With  the  cold  kisses  of  the  ground. 

Pale  death  shall  riot  on  their  souls, 
Their  flesh  shall  noisome  vermin  eat, 
The  just  shall  in  the  morning  rise 
And  find  their  tyrants  at  their  feet. 

But  to  banish  this  voice  from  the  tombs 
from  our  ears,  we  may  listen  to  a  stanza 
from  a  seventeenth  century  hymnal,  which 
is  supremely  incongruous: 

Ye  monsters  of  the  briny  deep, 
Your  Maker's  praises  spout; 
Up  from  the  deep  ye  codlings  peep, 
And  wag  your  tails  about. 

The  process  of  revision  and  emendation 
always  goes  on  wherever  religion  is  a 
vital  and  growing  experience.  There  is 
no  greater  need  in  worship  today  than  for 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple     5 

the  appearance  of  hymn  writers  who  shall 
produce  hymns  that  are  in  keeping  with 
the  new  social,  religious,  and  theological 
thought  of  our  day.  The  Psalter  shared 
this  experience  of  revision.  Had  it  not 
done  so,  it  would  have  been  an  almost 
unique  exception  in  the  religious  literature 
of  the  Hebrews.  The  whole  Old  Testa- 
ment was  subjected  to  repeated  revisions 
in  order  to  keep  it  abreast  of  the  advan- 
cing religious  thought  of  Israel.  This  is  no 
mere  theory  of  critical  scholarship,  but  is 
attested  by  actual  facts.  One  of  the 
clearest  examples  of  this  is  furnished  by  a 
comparison  of  the  materials  in  Samuel 
and  Kings  on  the  one  hand  with  the 
contents  of  the  Books  of  Chronicles  on 
the  other.  •  It  at  once  appears  that  the 
Chronicler  has  made  use  of  exactly  the 
same  materials  as  were  used  in  the  older 
work.  Large  sections  of  these  two  edi- 
tions of  the  ancient  history  run  parallel, 
being  practically  identical,  verhathn  et 
literatim.  But  the  Chronicler  was  not 
content  merely  to  repeat  the  work  of  his 


6  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

predecessors;  he  is  concerned  rather  to 
reinterpret  the  ancient  history  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  it  convey  the  lessons  that 
he  wished  to  inculcate  in  the  minds  of  his 
contemporaries.  So  he  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  supplement  his  predecessors'  nar- 
rative, to  modify  it  more  or  less  to  suit 
his  purpose,  yea,  even  occasionally  to 
contradict  it  fiatfooted.  For  example, 
II  Sam.  24:1  naively  says  that  "the 
anger  of  Yahweh  was  kindled  against 
Israel,  and  He  moved  David  against  them, 
saying:  Go,  number  Israel  and  Judah." 
But  obedience  to  this  divine  leading 
brought  a  pestilence  from  Yahweh  upon 
Israel.  The  ethics  of  this  procedure  did 
not  satisfy  the  Chronicler;  hence  his 
account  of  the  same  transaction  reads, 
"And  Satan  stood  up  against  Israel  and 
moved  David  to  number  Israel"  (I  Chron. 
21:1).  The  kings  Asa  and  Jehoshaphat 
of  Judah  are  credited  by  the  Books  of 
Kings  with  the  removal  of  the  high  places 
from  Judah  (1  Kings  15:14;  22:43);  the 
Chronicler    flatly    denies    to    them    this 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple     7 

achievement  (II  Chron.  14:5;  17:6).  Cf. 
also  II  Kings  12:21  with  II  Chron.  24:26, 
noting  that  the  Chronicler  adds  to  the 
names  of  the  murderers  of  King  Joash  the 
information  that  their  mothers  were  respec- 
tively an  Ammonitess  and  a  Moabitess 
and  keeping  in  mind  that  Chronicles  was 
produced  in  the  later  period  when  a  strong 
influence  was  working  against  the  marriage 
of  Jews  with  non-Jews. 

It  is  quite  evident  from  the  facts  in  the 
Psalter  itself  that  the  hands  of  editors  were 
long  busied  with  the  editing  of  the  Psalms. 
The  Psalter  in  its  present  form  constitutes 
a  collection  of  earlier  and  smaller  psalters. 
We  find  such  in  groups  of  psalms  assigned 
to  David,  to  Korah,  and  to  Asaph,  and  in 
the  Songs  of  Ascents  (Pss.  121  ff.).  These, 
together  with  many  anonymous  psalms, 
have  been  brought  together  and  organized 
into  five  books,  viz..  Book  I  containing 
Psalms  1-14;  Book  II  including  Psalms 
42-72;  Book  III  numbering  Psalms  73- 
89;  Book  rV  stopping  with  Psalm  106; 
and  Book  V  closing  the  Psalter.    Each  of 


8  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

these  books  has  been  provided  with  a 
closing  doxology;  see  Pss.  41:12;  72:18, 
19;  89:51;  106:47;  and  150,  which  is 
a  doxology  throughout  and  furnishes  a 
fitting  close  to  the  entire  Psalter.  Some- 
times this  editorial  work  has  gone  too  far, 
as  in  the  case  of  Psalms  42  and  43  which 
are  in  reality  but  one  psalm,  as  is  shown 
by  the  common  refrain  in  42:5,  11  and 
43:5.  Sometimes  it  was  not  thorough 
enough  as  appears  from  the  fact  that  some 
materials  are  duplicated.  Ps.  40:14-18 
is  identical  with  Psalm  70;  Psalm  14  is 
repeated  as  Psalm  53;  the  same  sort  of 
repetition  appears  in  Pss.  31:2-4  and 
71:1-3,  in  57:8-12  and  108:2-6,  in 
60:7-14  and  108:7-14. 

Another  type  of  editorial  work  upon  the 
Psalms  is  shown  in  the  superscriptions 
which  they  now  carry.  It  is  the  conclu- 
sion of  scholars  in  general  that  these  head- 
ings were  attached  to  their  respective 
psalms  at  a  relatively  late  date  in  the 
history  of  the  Psalter.  The  wish  to  know 
under  what  circumstances  and  by  whom  a 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple    9 

favorite  song  or  hymn  was  written  is  a 
very  natural  and  common  one.  The 
Jewish  community  was  very  solicitous 
about  these  things.  Where  facts  were 
not  at  hand,  they  gave  free  play  to  their 
imagination.  In  the  Greek  version  of 
the  Psalms,  which  was  made  at  a  much 
earlier  time  than  that  in  which  the  oldest 
of  our  existing  manuscripts  of  the  Hebrew 
text  was  written,  and  was  indeed  the  Bible 
used  throughout  the  Greek  world  in  the 
days  of  the  early  church,  many  of  the 
Psalms  which  have  no  superscription  in 
the  Hebrew  text  are  provided  with  head- 
ings. For  example,  in  the  Septuagint 
David  is  credited  with  the  authorship  of 
Psalms  33,  43,  67,  71,  91,  93-99,  104,  and 
137,  which  have  no  superscriptions  in  the 
Hebrew  Bible.  In  addition,  the  Septua- 
gint contains  an  extra  psalm.  No.  151, 
and  this  too  is  assigned  to  David.  Fur- 
ther, Haggai  and  Zechariah  are  made 
responsible  by  the  Greek  translators  for 
Psalms  146-148.  It  is  interesting  and 
illuminating  to  discover  that  one  of  these 


lo  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

"Davidic"  psalms  comes  from  the  lips  of 
exiles  who  say, 

By  the  rivers  of  Babylon,  there  we  sat, 
Yea,  we  wept,  when  we  remembered  Zion 

[Psahn  137]. 

The  reader  can  but  wonder  whether  the 
editors  who  attached  the  superscriptions 
to  the  Psalms  in  the  Hebrew  text  were 
any  more  critically  minded.  We  see  the 
process  of  creating  authors  and  situations 
for  the  Psalms  in  full  swing  in  the  Greek 
translation,  which  was  made  before  the 
Canon  was  closed.  How  much  further  back 
is  the  stream  of  tradition  as  represented  in 
the  superscriptions  to  be  traced,  and  were 
the  predecessors  of  the  translators  any 
better  informed  than  their  successors? 
These  are  questions  to  which  no  confident 
answer  can  be  given. 

One  bit  of  editorial  work  is  worthy  of 
special  notice.  A  close  examination  of  the 
Psalter  reveals  the  fact  that  in  certain 
sections  the  Psalms  are  arranged  in  accord- 
ance with  an  organizing  principle.  That 
is  to  say,  Psalms  1-41  and  84-150  employ 


The  Hymn  Book  of  tJie  Second  Temple  ii 

the  name  Yahweh  by  preference  and 
almost  to  the  exclusion  of  other  designa- 
tions of  the  Deity;  but  Psalms  42-83  with 
equal  consistency  exclude  that  name  and 
use  the  general  term  Elohim,  meaning 
God.  This  is,  of  course,  not  accidental. 
Indeed  the  only  difference  between  Psalms 
14  and  53  is  that  the  former  uses  Yahweh 
and  the  latter  speaks  of  Elohim.  These 
two  groups  of  psalms  either  come  from 
different  theological  centers,  or  have  been 
through  the  hands  of  different  editors. 
Perhaps  the  editor  of  the  Elohim  psalms 
objected  to  the  use  of  a  proper  name  for 
the  Deity,  realizing  that  it  was  a  relic  of 
an  earlier  stage  of  thought  in  which  gods 
had  to  be  differentiated  one  from  another 
and  identified  by  special  names  just  like 
men.  In  any  case,  the  different  terms 
employed  for  the  Deity  reflect  different 
theological  interpretations  or  views  of 
God. 

The  Psalms  thus  seem  to  have  gone 
through  several  hands  and  to  have  suffered 
not  a  few  things  in  the  course  of  that 


12  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

history.  It  is  a  history  that  must  have 
covered  some  time.  From  the  writing  of 
the  individual  songs  by  various  individ- 
ual authors  at  different  times  and  places, 
through  the  gathering  together  of  such 
poems  into  little  local  collections  in  dif- 
ferent localities,  followed  by  the  pro- 
cess of  amalgamating  these  various 
collections  into  one  general  collection — 
perhaps  not  all  at  one  time,  but  by  gradual 
stages — with  time  allowed  between  the 
successive  forms  of  the  growing  Psalter 
for  the  addition  of  superscriptions  and  the 
touching  up  and  pruning  down  of  obsoles- 
cent elements  in  the  Psalms — all  this 
demands  an  adequate  period  of  time  for 
its  accomplishment.  At  the  end  of  such 
a  long-continued  and  unceasing  revision, 
the  Psalms  would  not  be  the  same  as  they 
were  at  its  beginning.  What  lies  before  us 
in  the  Psalter  is  that  which  commended 
itself  to  the  judgment  of  the  successive 
editorial  groups  and  so  survived.  It  is 
safe  to  say  also  that  it  was  a  "survival  of 
the  fittest." 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple  13 

We  must,  however,  be  careful  in  defin- 
ing the  content  of  the  word  "fittest." 
This  definition  must  be  made  in  the  Hght 
of  our  general  proposition  that  the  Psalter 
was  the  hymn  book  of  the  Second  Temple. 
A  hymn  book  in  general  use  is  never  the 
exponent  of  the  advanced  thought  of 
the  age  to  which  it  belongs.  If  it  were, 
it  would  not  find  general  acceptance.  It 
rather  reflects  the  thought  and  aspiration 
of  the  average  man.  It  must  make  its 
appeal  to  the  common  intelligence,  faith, 
and  hope,  if  it  is  to  succeed.  It  is  not 
until  the  new  thought  has  been  taken  up 
into  the  common  consciousness  that  it 
finds  entry  into  the  common  hymn  book. 
The  same  thing  holds  true  of  the  Psalter. 
It  is  not  the  exponent  of  the  newer  think- 
ing in  Judaism,  but  the  repository  of  the 
generally  accepted  ideas  and  attitudes  of 
the  postexilic  community.  This  is  seen  in 
the  thought  of  the  Psalms  upon  the  mean- 
ing of  suffering.'  There  is  practically 
no  reflection  of  the  influence  of  the  great 

^  See  chap,  iii, 


14  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

masterpiece  of  Hebrew  thought  upon  that 
subject,  viz.,  the  Book  of  Job.  Nor  is 
there  any  recognition  of  the  idea  of  vicari- 
ous suffering  worked  out  by  the  author  of 
Isaiah,  chapter  53.  Both  of  these  inter- 
pretations of  suffering  were  current  in  the 
period  during  which  the  Psalter  was  taking 
shape;  and  yet,  the  Psalms  hold  fast  to 
the  old  views  on  this  perplexing  problem 
and  show  no  uncertainty  or  limitation  in 
their  proclamation  even  though  Job  has 
riddled  them  through  and  through.  In 
like  manner  no  clear  expression  is  given 
to  the  thought  of  the  responsibility  of  the 
individual  for  his  own  acts  before  God. 
This  was  an  idea  that  did  not  find  full 
recognition  until  the  time  of  Jeremiah 
and  Ezekiel  in  the  early  days  of  Exile. 
It  was  too  new  and  unfamiliar  to  get  into 
the  select  company  of  old  and  familiar 
ideas  constituting  the  goodly  fellowship 
of  the  Psalms.  The  same  statements 
hold  good  of  the  idea  of  life  after  death.' 
It  finds  little,  if  any,  recognition  in  the 

» Sec  chap,  iv. 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple  15 

Psalter,  and  the  explanation  is  that  it  did 
not  bulk  large  in  the  Hebrew  religious 
consciousness  until  very  late  in  the  post- 
exilic  age.  Naturally,  therefore,  it  does 
not  find  entry  into  the  people's  hymn  book. 
We  need  not,  consequently,  turn  to  the 
Psalter  with  any  expectation  of  finding 
the  latest  stages  in  Hebrew  religious 
development  on  record.  It  is  not  a  book 
for  the  furtherance  of  progressive  thought. 
It  was  a  popular  manual  of  devotion. 
New  thoughts  are  never  popular.  Think- 
ing is  not  a  popular  recreation;  for  the 
majority  it  is  a  painful  process.  The 
coming  together  of  the  congregation  in 
worship  is  not  facilitated  by  exercises  in 
hard  thinking.  Fellowship  is  found  rather 
in  common  aspiration  and  need.  To  have 
brought  in  the  newest  theological  formulas 
and  philosophical  questions  into  the  songs 
of  the  sanctuary  would  have  been  fatal 
to  the  harmony  of  the  worshipers.  The 
merit  of  the  Psalter  Hes  not  so  much  in  its 
power  of  sheer  thought  as  in  the  success 
with  which  it  expresses  those  sentiments 


1 6  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

and  attitudes  of  soul  that  are  fundamental 
in  worship.  These  are  so  beautifully  pro- 
portioned and  so  perfectly  phrased  that 
they  have,  with  some  freedom  in  their 
interpretation,  satisfied  the  needs  of  wor- 
shiping congregations  and  pious  indi- 
viduals through  all  the  generations  until 
now. 

Just  as  we  have  no  right  to  demand  the 
most  aggressive  thinking  of  the  Psalmists, 
so  likewise  we  may  not  insist  upon  the 
highest  poetic  achievement  throughout. 
Psalms  and  hymns  for  use  in  public 
worship  are  beset  by  limitations  of  length 
and  form  that  preclude  the  possibility 
of  reaching  the  greatest  heights  of  poetic 
power.  We  do  not  find  the  masterpieces 
of  modern  poetry  in  the  hymnals  of 
the  various  peoples.  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Browning,  Goethe,  Schiller,  Dante,  and 
their  peers  could  not  have  found  full 
freedom  for  their  great  powers  in  the 
writing  of  hymns.' 

*  In  support  of  this  proposition,  attention  may  be  called 
to  a  paragraph  from  an  editorial  in  the  London  Mercury  for 
1920  (Vol.  I,  p.  261),  by  Mr.  J.  C.  Squire,  who  is  there  passing 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple  17 

The  greatest  poetry  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  not  found  in  the  Book  of  Psalms. 
A  community  hymnal  cannot  make  large 
demands  upon  the  intelligence,  the  imagi- 
nation, or  even  the  emotions  of  those  who 
use  it.  This  is  the  price  of  its  popularity. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  poetry,  pure 


in  review  the  literature  published  in  19 19.     He  says,  "The 

fact  remains  that  by  the  common  consent  of  mankind, 

lyrics  alone — even  the  lyrics  of  a  Heine,  a  Herrick,  or  a 

Bums — will  not  give  a  man  rank  with  the  greatest  poetic 

artists.    It  may  be  that  in  Poe's  sense  a  work  of  thousands 

of  lines,  which  maintams  the  highest  level  of  poetry, 

is  impossible;    that  what  Professor  Quiller-Couch  calls 

'The  Capital  Difficulty  of  Verse'  is  insuperable;   but  this 

does  not  invahdate  the  claim  of  the  Iliad  or  Paradise 

Lost  to  be  considered  greater  than  Lycidas  or  the  songs  of 

Meleager.    That  they  share  in  some  measure  the  defects 

of  The  Purple  Island  and  Pharonnida  does  not  prevent 

The  Fairy  Queen  and  Faust  bemg  the  greatest  of  their 

respective  authors'  works.     From  a  poet  as  from  another 

we  want  something  beyond  'jewels  five  foot  long,'   the 

lovehest   impressions   of   the   most   beautiful   particular 

scenes,    reflections    of    moods,    verbal    chamber    music, 

momentary  vision,  sensibility,  song.    By    the    common 

consent   of    mankmd,    the   greatest   things  in  the  world 

are  those  works  which,  while   full  of  beautiful  details 

and  informed  with  the  poetic  spirit,  are  moulded  to  a 

larger  conception  and  attempt  a  larger  picture  of  the 

universe,  of  the  destiny  of  man,  or  of  the  moving  life  of 

the  world." 


1 8  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

and  simple,  and  wholly  apart  from  religious 
values,  the  best  Hebrew  poetry  is  in  the 
Book  of  Job  and  in  such  vivid  and  glowing 
prophetic  passages  as  are  found,  for 
example,  in  the  Book  of  Isaiah  and  in  the 
second  chapter  of  Nahum.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  some  of  the  Psalms  are,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  poetry,  mediocre  in 
quality.  Take,  by  way  of  example,  the 
historical  Psalms,  such  as  78,  105,  106, 
and  136,  particularly  the  last  mentioned, 
with  its  monotonously  repetitious  refrain. 
Another  group  of  psalms  that  do  not  mount 
high  in  the  poetic  scale  is  made  up  of  those 
that  subject  themselves  to  alphabetic 
structure.  These  are  Psalms  9  and  10,  in 
which  the  initial  letters  of  every  other 
verse  in  succession,  beginning  with  the 
second,  constitute  the  Hebrew  alphabet; 
Psalm  37,  in  which  a  similar  arrangement 
is  found,  though  it  begins  with  verse  i; 
Psalms  25,  34,  and  145,  in  which  only 
one  verse  is  allotted  to  each  letter  in  turn; 
Psalms  III  and  112,  where  each  line  in 
turn  begins  with  the  next  letter  of  the 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple  19 

alphabet;  and  Psalm  119,  the  longest 
psalm  in  the  Psalter  and  the  longest 
chapter  in  the  Bible,  which  is  organized 
in  stanzas  of  eight  lines  each,  all  eight 
beginning  with  the  same  letter  of  the 
alphabet,  and  each  successive  stanza  of 
eight  verses  taking  the  next  letter  of  the 
alphabet  in  turn,  as  shown  in  the  Revised 
Version.  Acrostic  poetry  is  never  of  a 
high  order;  an  acrostic  arrangement  of 
any  sort  is  a  fetter  and  most  effectively 
hobbles  the  gait  of  Pegasus. 

The  Psalms  of  Ascents,  or  so-called 
Pilgrim  Psalms,  are  among  the  best  poems 
of  the  Psalter.  Note  for  example  the 
stir  of  movement  and  the  vivid  imagery 
in  Psalm  124: 

If  it  were  not  that  Yahweh  was  on  our  side, 

Let  Israel  now  say, 

If  it  were  not  that  Yahweh  was  on  our  side, 

When  men  rose  up  against  us; 

Then  they  had  swallowed  us  up  alive. 

When  their  anger  burned  against  us; 

Then  the  waters  had  engulfed  us, 

The  torrent  had  passed  over  us; 

Then  had  passed  over  us 

The  raging  waters. 


20  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

Blessed  be  Yahweh  Who  did  not  give  us 

A  prey  to  their  teeth. 

We  were  delivered,  like  a  bird 

From  the  snare  of  the  fowlers; 

The  snare  was  shattered, 

And  we  were  delivered. 

Our  help  is  in  the  name  of  Yahweh, 

The  Maker  of  the  heavens  and  earth. 

The  wonder  of  the  Psalter  is,  not  that 
there  is  some  poor  poetry  in  it,  but  that 
there  is  so  Httle  of  that  kind.  The  high 
level  that  is  almost  uniformly  maintained 
challenges  comparison  with  the  hymn 
books  of  the  world.  As  a  hymn  book  it  has 
nothing  to  fear  on  the  side  of  its  poetic 
superiority. 

If  we  are  right  in  describing  the  Psalter 
as  the  "Hymn  Book  of  the  Second 
Temple,"  we  ought  to  find  its  function  as 
the  mouthpiece  of  the  aspirations  and 
praises  of  the  Jewish  community  pretty 
clearly  revealed  in  the  text  of  the  Psalms 
themselves.  The  worship  in  the  Temple 
was  primarily  not  a  matter  of  individual 
and  personal   significance,   but  rather  a 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple  21 

community  function.  The  sacrifice  and 
the  praise  were  offered  mainly  in  behalf 
of  the  people  as  a  whole.  The  Temple 
and  its  worship  stood  as  the  nation's 
representative  before  Yahweh.  The  priests 
were  the  community's  intermediaries  with 
God.  This  community  function  is  clearly 
expressed  in  some  of  the  psalms.  See 
Psalm  46,  for  example,  where  the  use  of 
the  first  person  plural  in  verses  i,  2,  7, 
and  II,  and  the  fact  that  the  inviolability 
of  Zion  is  the  poet's  theme,  make  this 
clear.  Or  Psalm  129,  in  which  Israel 
is  introduced  as  the  speaker;  and  Psalm 
74,  in  which  the  lamentable  history  of  the 
Jewish  community  is  brought  to  God's 
attention  that  he  may  be  moved  to  bestir 
himself  in  Israel's  behalf;  and  Psalm  137, 
in  which  the  sentiments  of  the  Jews  in 
exile  are  given  voice;  and  Psalm  124  (see 
pp.  19  and  20) ,  where  the  community  thanks 
God  for  past  favors. 

But  in  considering  the  Psalter  as  the 
expression  of  the  community's  sentiments, 


22  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

we  are  straightway  confronted  by  a  prob- 
lem in  interpretation.  More  than  one 
half  of  the  Psalms  seem  on  the  face  of 
them  to  be  intensely  individualistic.  They 
are  full  of  the  pronouns  I,  my,  and  me. 
Who  is  this  ubiquitous  individual  ?  How 
does  he  come  to  have  so  large  a  space 
given  to  him  in  a  congregational  hymnal  ? 
Can  it  be  that  this  "I''  is  the  personified 
community  itself  speaking?  This  latter 
question  has  been  affirmatively  answered 
by  many  interpreters.  Some  have  carried 
this  interpretation  so  far  as  practically 
to  eliminate  all  individualistic  elements 
from  the  Psalter.  This  is  one  of  the  most 
fundamental  questions  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Psalms,  and  well  deserves  a 
little  attention  here. 

The  early  Jewish  commentators  and 
Christian  interpreters  agreed  that  the 
"I"  was  the  community.  It  was  not 
until  relatively  late  in  the  history  of 
interpretation  that  an  individualistic  inter- 
pretation came  to  prevail.  Calvin,  the 
great  Swiss  reformer,  had  much  to  do  with 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple  23 

bringing  about  the  transfer  of  emphasis. 
Early  interpretation  has  some  right  to 
be  heard,  since  if  there  were  any  tradition 
reaching  back  into  the  distant  past,  the 
early  interpreters  would  be  likely  to  reflect 
it.  Then,  too,  as  we  have  already  indi- 
cated, the  recognition  of  personal  worth 
and  individual  responsibility  in  the  sight 
of  God  was  very  slow  to  come  to  the  fore 
in  Israel.  It  was  one  of  the  newer 
thoughts  in  the  early  postexilic  commu- 
nity and  as  such  it  would  not  be  likely 
to  obtain  the  indorsement  of  the  makers 
of  the  community's  hymnal.  The  older 
thought  of  the  nation  as  the  center  of 
interest  and  the  representative  of  Yahweh 
in  the  world  would  be  much  more  likely 
to  find  a  welcome  in  the  sacred  songs  of 
the  Temple.  Furthermore,  the  practice 
of  personification,  such  as  is  presupposed 
by  the  identification  of  "I"  with  the  com- 
munity, is  very  common  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. We  at  once  recall  such  a  phrase 
as  "the  virgin  daughter  of  Zion,"  used  to 
designate    the   Jewish    community.     The 


24  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

most  notable  case  of  the  sort  probably 
is  the  application  of  the  term  "Servant 
of  Yahweh"  in  Isaiah,  chapters  40-55, 
to  the  Jewish  nation.  There  is,  therefore, 
nothing  a  priori  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  interpretation  of  the  "I"  of  the 
Psalms  as  indicating  the  Jewish  com- 
munity as  a  whole,  at  least  in  some  cases. 
Now,  it  turns  out  that  the  "I"  is  actu- 
ally and  definitely  so  interpreted  as  repre- 
sentative of  Israel  in  some  cases  by  the 
language  of  the  Psalms  themselves.  In 
Psalm  102,  the  first  eleven  verses  are 
given  over  to  a  description  of  distress 
and  suffering  that  is  most  intimate  and 
personal  in  spirit  and  in  phraseology; 
yet  immediately  thereupon  in  verses  12  ff. 
we  read, 

Thou  wilt  arise,  Thou  wilt  have  mercy  on  Zion; 

For  it  is  the  time  to  favor  her, 

For  the  set  time  is  come — 

For  thy  servants  take  pleasure  in  her  stones, 

And  her  dust  they  favor. 

And  the  nations  shall  fear  the  name  of  Yahweh, 

And  Kings  of  the  earth  Thy  glory; 

Because  Yahweh  has  built  up  Zion,  etc. 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple  25 

The  whole  interest  of  the  Psalm  is  in 
the  future  of  Zion,  and  the  long  introduc- 
tion detailing  sufferings  and  sorrows  is 
much  more  in  place  if  it  is  the  experience 
of  Israel  that  is  being  related  than  it  would 
be  if  the  poet's  own  personal  reactions 
were  being  put  on  record.  Another  case 
in  point  is  Psalm  118.  In  verse  2  we 
are  introduced  to  Israel  as  the  speaker, 
and  in  verses  3  and  4  it  is  made  clear  that 
what  we  are  to  hear  is  community  experi- 
ence and  not  the  author's  own  personal 
hopes  and  fears.  When  we  pass  on  to 
verses  10  ff .  we  read, 

All  the  nations  compass  me  about; 

In  the  name  of  Yahweh,  I  will  surely  cut  them  off. 

They  compass  me  about,  yea,  they  encompass  me ; 

In  the  name  of  Yahweh  I  will  surely  cut  them  off. 

They  compass  me  about  like  bees;^ 

In  the  name  of  Yahweh,  I  will  surely  cut  them  off. 

Thou  didst  thrust  hard  at  me,  that  I  might  fall; 

But  Yahweh  helped  me. 

Yah  is  my  strength  and  song, 

And  He  has  become  my  deliverance. 

How  inadequate  any  personal  experi- 
ence is  to  such  language  as  that,  and  how 

^The  Hebrew  has  an  extra  line  here  which  is  a  later 
gloss;  viz.:  "They  are  quenched  like  the  fire  of  thorns." 


26  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

perfectly  it  fits  the  undying  hope  of  Juda- 
ism! A  similar  judgment  holds  good  of 
Psalm  124  (see  pp.  19  and  20),  where  Israel  is 
cited  as  the  speaker  in  verse  2.  In  Psalm 
3,  the  same  appropriateness  of  the  lan- 
guage to  the  community  is  evident,  and 
in  the  last  verse  it  is  upon  the  people  as  a 
whole  that  the  blessing  of  Yahweh  is 
invoked.  Still  other  psalms  that  may 
safely  be  called  community  hymns  are 
Psalms  13,  14,  18  (note  especially  verses 
27,  29,  and  43  ff.),  and  130  (note  particu- 
larly the  last  two  verses).  It  seems  clear, 
therefore,  that  some  of  the  psalms  are  to 
be  thought  of  as  breathing  forth  the  senti- 
ments of  the  community  Ufe  rather  than 
as  records  of  the  reUgious  life  of  individual 
Jewish  saints.  But  this  is  not  to  grant 
that  all  the  Psalms  were  originally  com- 
posed as  national  songs.  We  must  now 
turn  to  the  evidence  that  the  individual 
is  not  without  recognition  in  the  Psalter. 
In  this  connection,  it  may  be  noted  that 
the  comparison  of  the  Psalter  with  a  hymn 
book  ought  not  to  be  carried  too  far.     It 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple  27 

is  by  no  means  certain  that  all  of  the 
Psalms  were  originally  composed  in  the 
expectation  that  they  would  be  used  as 
part  of  the  service  of  praise  and  prayer 
in  public  worship.  Such  an  inordinately 
long  psalm  as  119  could  surely  not  be  sung 
by  even  the  most  enduring  of  congrega- 
tions! The  same  difficulty,  though  in 
less  degree,  applies  to  Psalm  73.  Nor 
were  the  Psalms  simg  by  the  entire  congre- 
gation necessarily,  but  rather  by  trained 
Temple  choirs.  Therefore,  the  necessity 
of  catering  to  the  common  mind  would 
not  be  quite  so  keenly  felt,  though  public 
opinion  could  not  be  completely  ignored. 
It  is  altogether  probable  that  the  ritual 
of  the  Babylonian  temples  gave  a  great 
impetus  to  Jewish  ritual  in  general  and  to 
psalm  writing  and  singing  in  particular. 
The  Babylonians  had  a  fully  developed 
hymnology  of  their  own.  Their  psalms 
were  not  lacking  in  individualistic  strains. 
Indeed  the  experiences  of  individuals 
occupy  a  large  place  in  Babylonian  psal- 
mody.    It    is    consequently    more    than 


28  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

probable  that  the  Jews  would  follow  their 
Babylonian  predecessors  in  recognizing 
individual  needs  and  thanksgivings  in 
their  hymn  book.  Then,  too,  the  rights 
of  individuals  were  clearly  set  forth  long 
before  the  close  of  the  Psalter  to  new 
additions.  The  Book  of  Job  is  an  in- 
tensely individuaHstic  piece  of  Hterature 
and  it  was  in  existence  by  the  fourth 
century  B.C.  The  prophet  Jeremiah 
already  in  the  seventh  century  had  in 
his  own  personal  life  made  rehgion  a  very 
personal  and  individual  experience.  Such 
a  life  as  his  could  not  fail  to  leave  a  pro- 
found impress  upon  the  religious  con- 
sciousness of  his  people. 

But  it  is  when  we  come  to  think  of  the 
authorship  of  the  Psalms  that  we  are 
forced  to  give  the  individual  his  full 
rights.  These  sacred  songs  were  neces- 
sarily written  by  pious  individuals.  Liter- 
ary composition  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
case  is  not  a  community  exercise,  but  an 
intensely  personal  and  individualistic  ex- 
perience.    As  the  Psalms  were  composed 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the.  Second  Temple  29 

by  individuals,  they  must  almost  neces- 
sarily be  to  a  large  extent  the  reflection  of 
individual  experience.  Certainly  some  of 
the  Psalms  almost  preclude  anything  but 
an  individualist  interpretation.  Take 
Psalm  116  by  way  of  illustration: 

I  love  Yahweh  because  He  hath  heard 
The  voice  of  my  supplications, 
Because  He  has  inclined  His  ear  unto  me; 
Hence  upon  the  name  of  Yahweh  I  will  call. 

The  cords  of  death  encircled  me, 

And  the  straits  of  Sheol  found  me. 

Trouble  and  sorrow  I  find; 

Hence  upon  the  name  of  Yahweh  I  will  call. 

Oh,  Yahweh,  deliver  my  life! 
Gracious  is  Yahweh  and  righteous, 
And  our  God  is  merciful. 
A  keeper  of  the  simple  is  Yahweh. 
I  was  brought  low  and  He  saved  me. 

Return  to  thy  resting  place,  O  my  soul. 
For  Yahweh  has  dealt  generously  with  thee. 
For  thou  hast  delivered  my  life  from  death, 
Mine  eyes  from  tears. 
And  my  feet  from  stumbling. 

I  will  walk  before  Yahweh, 
In  the  lands  of  the  living. 


30  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

I  believe  that  I  should  speak: 
I  have  been  greatly  humbled. 
I  said  in  my  perturbation, 
All  mankind  is  treacherous. 

How  shall  I  requite  to  Yahweh 

All  His  benefits  to  me  ? 

I  will  take  the  cup  of  deHverance; 

And  upon  the  name  of  Yahweh  I  will  call. 

My  vows  to  Yahweh  I  will  fulfil, 
In  the  presence  of  all  His  people. 
Precious  in  the  eyes  of  Yahweh 
Is  the  death  of  His  saints. 

Oh,  Yahweh,  verily  I  am  Thy  servant. 

I  am  Thy  servant,  the  son  of  Thine  handmaid. 

Thou  hast  loosed  my  bonds. 

To  Thee  I  will  sacrifice  the  sacrifice  of  praise; 

And  upon  the  name  of  Yahweh  I  will  call. 

My  vows  to  Yahweh  I  will  fulfil, 
In  the  presence  of  all  His  people, 
In  the  courts  of  the  house  of  Yahweh, 
In  the  midst  of  thee,  O  Jerusalem. 

These  individuals  who  composed  the 
Psahns  did  not  cease  to  be  patriots  when 
they  became  poets.  In  the  composition 
of  their  hymns,  the}'-  would  naturally 
express  their  religio-patriotic  feelings  and 
ideals  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  representa- 


The  Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple  31 

five  of  the  feelings  of  the  pious  community 
as  a  whole.  No  man  could  write  a  satis- 
factory h3min  for  the  community  who  did 
not  fully  enter  into  the  inmost  recesses 
of  its  religious  and  national  enthusiasms. 
What  was  the  ideal  and  hope  of  one  typical 
soul  was  common  to  all.  What  came 
bursting  forth  as  prayer  and  praise  from 
one  loyal  heart  was  quickly  taken  up  by 
others  and  passed  from  lip  to  lip  until  it 
became  a  national  possession  and  pride. 
The  interests  of  the  pious  individual  in 
Judaism  were  so  closely  and  inextricably 
bound  up  with  the  interests  of  the  com- 
munity as  a  whole  that  in  many  cases 
it  is  practically  impossible  to  distinguish 
between  personal  and  community  songs. 
To  many  a  Jew  the  welfare  of  Zion  was  of 
far  greater  importance  than  his  own  well- 
being.  Such  men  showed  by  their  heroism 
in  the  Maccabaean  War  that  death  was 
preferable  in  their  eyes  to  disloyalty  to  the 
ideals  of  Zion.  When  we  read  or  sing  the 
Psalms,  therefore,  let  us  remember  that 
we  are  not  only  echoing  the  sentiments  of 


32  TJte  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

poets  and  saints  of  postexilic  Judaism  who 
are  otherwise  unknown,  but  we  are  also 
joining  our  hearts  and  voices  in  a  chorus 
of  prayer  and  praise  that  has  numbered 
the  Jews  of  that  heroic  age  and  of  all  suc- 
ceeding ages,  and  in  turn  has  been  taken 
up  and  carried  on  in  fuller  volume  and 
with  richer  harmony  by  generation  after 
generation  of  Christian  worshipers.  The 
"Hymn  Book  of  the  Second  Temple '^ 
has  made  for  itself  a  permanent  place  in 
the  devotional  literature  of  mankind. 


II 

THE  SWEET  SINGER  OF  ISRAEL 

The  name  of  David  is  inseparably 
associated  with  the  Book  of  Psalms.  The 
common  designation  of  the  Psalter  is  "The 
Psalms  of  David.''  The  natural  reason 
for  this  is,  of  course,  the  fact  that 
seventy-three  of  the  one  hundred  and 
fifty  psalms  in  the  Hebrew  Psalter  are  by 
their  superscriptions  assigned  to  David. 
The  Septuagint  Version  of  the  Psalms  does 
even  better  by  David,  assigning  fourteen 
more  to  him  and  adding  a  new  one,  viz., 
Psalm  151,  which  is  also  his.  These 
"Davidic''  Psalms  in  quality  constitute 
the  flower  of  the  Psalter  and  make  up 
50  per  cent  of  its  contents. 

We  propose  here  to  examine  this  tradi- 
tion of  "Davidic"  authorship  and  to 
estimate  its  validity.  This  is  a  problem  of 
first-class  importance  for  the  religion  of 
Israel;  for  if  the  tradition  in  question  be 
correct,  the  whole  modern  conception  of 

33 


34  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

the  nature  and  the  development  of  Hebrew 
Hterature  and  reUgion  is  in  need  of  radical 
revision.  If  these  Psalms  are  rightly 
assigned  to  David,  then  there  was  no 
progress  in  the  history  of  Hebrew  rehgion 
from  the  time  of  David  on.  It  was  already 
mature  in  the  eleventh  century  B.C.  But 
this  is  in  direct  conflict  with  conclusions 
seemingly  well  estabHshed  in  other  por- 
tions of  the  Hebrew  hterature.  Hence 
we  must  examine  the  Davidic  tradition 
to  see  upon  what  basis  it  rests  and  what 
credence  should  be  given  it.  We  are 
altogether  within  our  rights  when  we 
institute  such  an  investigation.  The  Old 
Testament  is  not  exempt  from  any  test  that 
may  properly  be  applied  to  literature  in 
general.  No  less  a  defender  of  traditional 
views  of  scripture  than  the  late  Professor 
William  Henry  Green,  of  Princeton  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  put  himself  squarely 
on  record  to  this  effect  in  the  following 
terms : 

No  objection  can  be  made  to  the  demand  that  the 
sacred  writings  should    be   subjected  to  the  same 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  35 

critical  tests  as  other  literary  productions  of  antiquity. 
When  were  they  written,  and  by  whom?  For 
whom  were  they  intended,  and  with  what  end  in 
view?  These  are  questions  that  may  fairly  be 
asked  respecting  the  several  books  of  the  Bible, 
as  respecting  other  books,  and  the  same  criteria 
that  are  applicable  in  the  one  case  are  applicable 
likewise  in  the  other.  Every  production  of  any 
age  bears  the  stamp  of  that  age.  It  takes  its  shape 
from,  influences  then  at  work.  It  is  part  of  the  life 
of  the  period,  and  can  only  be  properly  estimated 
and  understood  from  being  viewed  in  its  original 
connections.  Its  language  will  be  the  language  of 
the  time  when  it  was  produced.  The  subject,  the 
style  of  thought,  the  local  and  personal  allusions,  will 
have  relation  to  the  circumstances  of  the  period, 
to  which  in  fact  the  whole  and  every  part  of  it  must 
have  its  adaptation,  and  which  must  have  their  right- 
ful place  in  determining  its  true  explanation. 

Inspiration  has  no  tendency  to  obliterate  those 
distinctive  qualities  and  characteristics  which  link 
men  to  their  own  age.  It  is  as  true  of  Paul  and 
Isaiah  as  it  is  of  Plato  and  Virgil,  that  their  intel- 
lectual life  and  writings  received  a  peculiar  impress 
from  their  surroundings.  It  is  by  the  application 
of  this  principle  that  literary  forgeries  are  detected. 
The  attempt  to  palm  off  one's  own  production  as  the 
work  of  one  of  a  different  age  and  subject  to  differ- 
ent conditions,  is  rarely  successful.  In  spite  of  every 
precaution,  something  will  leak  out  to  betray  the  fact 
that  the  real  circumstances  of  its  origin  are  different 
from   those  that  are   pretended.     If  now  inspired 


36  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

writings,  like  others,  are  in  all  their  literary  aspects  the 
outgrowth  of  their  own  age,  then  the  most  thorough 
scrutiny  can  but  explain  our  faith  in  their  real  origin; 
and  if  in  any  instance  the  view  commonly  entertained 
of  their  origin  or  authorship  is  incorrect  in  any  par- 
ticular, the  critical  study  which  detects  the  error,  and 
assigns  each  writing  to  its  proper  time  and  place,  can 
only  conduce  to  its  being  better  understood  and 
more  accurately  appreciated.^ 

We  are  stimulated  to  the  exercise  of  the 
right  so  freely  granted  by  Professor  Green 
by  various  facts  having  a  direct  bearing 
upon  our  problem.  For  example,  we 
know  that  the  habit  of  assigning  reHgious 
writings  to  great  men  of  the  past  was  very 
common  in  the  later  postexilic  period. 
Solomon  is  made  to  have  been  the  author 
of  more  than  one  composition  by  later 
editors,  viz.,  the  Psalms  of  Solomon,  the 
Odes  of  Solomon,  and  the  Wisdom  of 
Solomon.  No  respectable  scholar  of  any 
school  of  interpretation  accepts  these 
assignments  to  Solomon  as  valid.  They 
are  unanimously  recognized  as  the  prod- 
uct  of   the   Hterary  activity  of  the  late 

» William  Henry  Green,  Moses  and  the  Prophets,  pp.  17, 
18. 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  37 

inter-biblical  period.  Not  only  Solomon, 
but  Enoch,  Adam,  Noah,  and  the  Patri- 
archs are  all  credited  with  literary  achieve- 
ments by  these  later  pseudepigraphic 
writers.  Can  we  be  sure  that  this  habit 
of  ascribing  writings  to  great  men  of  the 
past  did  not  begin  till  after  the  close 
of  the  Old  Testament  Canon?  That 
would  be  a  very  unsafe  conclusion;  indeed 
it  would  be  in  direct  conflict  with  the  facts 
just  cited,  for  the  Canon  was  not  closed 
until  long  after  the  pseudepigraphic  works 
here  referred  to  were  published.  May  it 
not  be,  then,  that  some  of  this  pseudepi- 
graphic output  found  admission  into  the 
Canon  itself  ?  It  is  quite  generally  recog- 
nized that  the  Song  of  Solomon  and  the 
Book  of  Ecclesiastes  are  from  an  age 
centuries  later  than  Solomon's  day.  When 
we  turn  to  the  Psalter  in  the  light  of 
these  facts,  we  discover  evidence  that 
fully  warrants  our  inquiry.  Psalm  53  is 
assigned  to  David,  and  yet  in  verse  6  it 
presupposes  the  captivity  of  Israel.  The 
temple  in  Jerusalem  was  not  yet  built  in 


38  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

David's   reign   and    yet    the    "Davidic" 

psalms  repeatedly  speak  of  it  as  though 

it  were  already  standing;    see  Pss.  27:4; 

138:2;    and  122.     How  far  editors  could 

go  in  this  direction  is  illustrated  by  the 

fact  that  the   Septuagint  includes  in  its 

extra  fifteen  "Davidic"  psalms,  the  137th, 

which   is   manifestly  a  product  of  exihc 

experience: 

By  the  rivers  of  Babylon,  there  we  sat, 
Yea,  we  wept  when  we  remembered  Zion. 

If  David  wrote  the  psalms  credited  to 
him,  he  was  a  great  poet  and  a  profoundly 
and  intelligently  religious  man.  We,  there- 
fore, turn  at  once  to  these  questions :  Was 
David  a  poet  ?  And  was  he  a  saint  ?  In 
seeking  answers,  we  shall  confine  ourselves 
to  the  oldest  and  best  sources  of  informa- 
tion. That  means  that  we  shall  leave  out 
of  account  the  materials  in  the  Books  of 
Chronicles,  because  it  is  quite  clear  that 
these  two  books  were  not  written  until 
long  after  the  Exile,  that  is,  700  years  or 
so  after  David's  death.  The  materials  in 
Samuel  and  Kings  regarding  David  have 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  39 

likewise,  of  course,  undergone  some  modi- 
fication at  the  hands  of  editors;  but  the 
original  narratives  are  still  easily  recog- 
nizable through  the  later  dress  that  has 
been  given  them.  There  is  in  these  older 
sources  quite  unanimous  testimony  on  the 
subject  of  David's  poetic  ability.  In 
II  Sam.  3 :  33  f .  there  is  given  the  dirge  that 
David  is  said  to  have  composed  on  the 
occasion  of  Abner's  death: 

Should  Abner  die  as  a  churl  dieth  ? 

Thy  hands  were  not  bound,  nor  thy  feet 

brought  into  fetters; 
As  a  man  falls  before  the  children  of  iniquity, 

So  didst  thou  fall. 

Greater  evidence  of  his  poetic  power  is 
forthcoming  in  the  dirge  over  Saul  and 
Jonathan  in  II  Sam.  i :  19-27: 

Weep,  O  Judah,  .... 
Grieve,  O  Israel,  over  thy  deadi 
How  are  the  mighty  fallen! 

Tell  it  not  in  Gath; 

Publish  it  not  in  the  streets  of  Ashkelon; 
Lest  the  daughters  of  the  PhiHstines  rejoice; 
Lest  the  daughters  of  the  uncircumcised  exult. 


40  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

Be  thou  withered,  O  Gilboa; 

Let  there  be  neither  dew  nor  rain  upon  you, 

0  fields  of  death; 

For  there  was  rejected  the  shield  of  a  warrior, 

The  shield  of  Saul, 

The  weapon  of  one  anointed  with  oil. 

From  the  blood  of  the  slain, 

From  the  fat  of  warriors, 

The  bow  of  Jonathan  turned  not  back. 

And  the  sword  of  Saul  returned  not  empty. 

Saul  and  Jonathan,  the  beloved  and  the  lovely, 
In  their  life  and  in  their  death  were  not  separated; 
They  were  swifter  than  eagles; 
They  were  stronger  than  lions. 

Ye  daughters  of  Israel,  weep  for  Saul, 
Who  clothed  you  with  scarlet  and  fine  linen. 
Who  put  golden  ornaments  upon  your  clothing. 
How  are  the  mighty  fallen,  in  the  midst  of  the  battle! 

Jonathan,  when  thou  didst  die,  I  was  overcome. 

1  am  distressed  for  thee,  O  Jonathan,  my  brother! 
Thou  wast  very  dear  to  me; 

Thy  love  to  me  was  wonderful. 
Beyond  the  love  of  women. 

How  are  the  mighty  fallen, 

And  the  weapons  of  war  perished. 

There  is  no  good  reason  for  doubting 
David's  authorship  of  these  elegies.    We 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  41 

may  add  to  this  testimony,  the  tradition 
represented  in  Amos  6:5,  which  associ- 
ates David's  name  with  the  use  of  musi- 
cal instruments,  and  that  account  of 
his  introduction  to  Saul  which  makes 
his  abihty  as  a  musician  responsible  for  his 
appearance  at  court.  This  points  to  his 
having  been  on  the  same  order  as  the 
medieval  bards  and  troubadours  who  com- 
posed, played  the  accompaniment  to, 
and  sang  their  own  ballads.  When  we 
likewise  recognize  the  fact  that  this  tradi- 
tion of  psalm  authorship  would  hardly 
have  attached  itself  to  the  name  of  one 
who  had  no  poetical  or  musical  ability 
whatsoever,  it  seems  quite  safe  to  accept 
the  tradition  that  David  was  a  poet  and  a 
musician  as  fully  established. 

We  now  turn  to  the  consideration  of 
David's  religious  life  and  thought.  That 
he  was  a  sincerely  and  deeply  religious 
man  lies  beyond  the  peradventure  of  a 
doubt.  He  took  no  important  step  with- 
out submitting  the  proposition  to  Yahweh 
and  awaiting  His  decision,  which  he  sought 


42  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

by  means  of  the  oracle  (I  Sam.  23:2; 
II  Sam.  2:1).  He  showed  himself  in 
sympathy  with  and  obedient  to  the  proph- 
ets of  Yahweh,  viz.,  Gad  and  Nathan 
(n  Sam.  12:1-25;  24:13,  14,  18).  He 
displayed  great  zeal  in  his  determination 
to  bring  the  ark  of  Yahweh  into  Jerusa- 
lem his  capital  city  (II  Sam.  chap.  6). 
One  of  the  most  convincing  evidences  of 
the  fineness  and  depth  of  his  rehgious 
instincts  is  afforded  by  his  demeanor  near 
the  well  of  Bethlehem.  Finding  himself  in 
the  thick  of  battle  in  close  proximity  to 
that  well  whence  he  had  obtained  many  a 
refreshing  drink  as  a  lad,  he  spontaneously 
expressed  his  longing  for  the  cooling  water, 
saying,  "  Oh  for  a  drink  of  water  from  the 
well  of  Bethlehem,  which  is  by  the  gate!" 
Immediately  three  of  his  heroic  warriors 
broke  through  the  encircling  lines  of  the 
foe  and  at  the  risk  of  their  lives  secured 
the  coveted  water  for  their  leader.  But 
David  took  it  and  "poured  it  out  as  a 
drink-offering  to  Yahweh,  saying,  *Far 
be  it  from  me,  O  Yahweh,  that  I  should 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  43 

do  this.  Shall  I  drink  the  blood  of  men 
who  went  in  jeopardy  of  their  lives?' 
And  so  he  would  not  drink  it"  (II  Sam. 
23:i5ff.).  No  wonder  that  his  men 
almost  worshiped  him! 

But  we  must  look  further  and  learn 
what  was  the  content  or  nature  of  David's 
rehgion.  Was  it  the  kind  of  religion  that 
must  be  credited  to  the  writer  of  the  psalms 
ascribed  to  him  ?  Let  us  take  up  first  the 
ethical  aspect  of  his  life.  The  first  thing 
that  leaps  into  view  naturally  is  the  Bath- 
sheba  episode.  This  was  something  more 
than  an  act  of  sexual  lust,  due  to  a  power- 
ful but  passing  passion.  In  a  sense  that 
was  the  smallest  part  of  his  crime.  This 
tragedy  also  reveals  a  capacity  for  deceit 
and  duplicity  that  is  beyond  contempt, 
and  it  came  to  full  fruition  in  murder  by 
proxy  such  as  that  for  which  a  Chicago 
police  captain  was  sent  to  the  electric 
chair  a  few  years  ago.  Nor  was  this  an 
isolated  case;  deceit  and  treachery  were 
ever  ready  in  his  hands.  He  was  driven 
into  flight  by  Saul  who  sought  his  life. 


44  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

In  his  hasty  escape  he  stopped  at  Nob 
where  there  was  a  sanctuary,  and  attend- 
ant priesthood.  Greeted  hospitably  by 
the  chief  priest,  David  explained  to  him 
that  he  was  on  a  confidential  mission  in 
behalf  of  King  Saul  and  that  the  matter  was 
so  urgent  that  he  had  had  time  to  supply 
himself  with  neither  food  nor  weapons. 
On  the  basis  of  this  tissue  of  falsehood, 
Abimelech  provided  him  with  what  he 
needed  to  send  him  on  his  way  (I  Sam. 
21:2-10).  When  Saul  heard  of  this  kind- 
ness to  his  foe,  he  ordered  the  slaughter  of 
the  entire  priestly  community.  David, 
upon  hearing  of  this  ghastly  deed, 
remarked,  "I  knew  on  that  day,  when 
Doeg  the  Edomite  was  there,  that  he 
would  certainly  tell  Saul.  1  have  brought 
about  the  death  of  all  the  members  of  thy 
father's  house"  (I  Sam.  22:20-22).  But 
his  knowledge  of  Doeg's  attitude  did  not 
prevent  him  from  going  ahead  with  his 
own  program  regardless  of  the  outcome  for 
his  priestly  host.  He  treated  his  Philis- 
tine protectors  in  the  same  deceitful  and 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  45 

heartless  way.  Achish,  King  of  Gath, 
welcomed  him  and  gave  him  a  place  of 
abode  on  the  southern  edge  of  the  terri- 
tory of  Gath.  David  used  the  advantage 
of  his  position,  remote  from  the  king's 
capital  and  adjacent  to  southern  clans 
that  were  friendly  to  Philistia  but  hostile 
to  Judah,  to  make  raids  upon  these  neigh- 
boring villages  and  destroy  them,  leaving 
neither  man,  woman,  nor  child  alive  to 
tell  the  tale.  Everyone  of  these  raids 
was  against  the  alUes  of  Achish,  and 
meant  the  weakening  of  Philistine  power. 
But  when  Achish  would  ask  David  after 
one  of  his  raids,  "'Whither  did  you  make 
a  raid  today?'  David  said,  'Against  the 
south  of  Judah,  and  against  the  south  of 
the  Jerahmeelites,  and  against  the  south 
of  the  Kenites.'  ....  And  Achish  be- 
Heved  David,  saying,  'He  has  made  the 
people  Israel  utterly  to  abhor  him;  and 
so  he  will  be  my  servant  for  ever.'"  One 
of  the  worst  manifestations  of  this  treach- 
erous and  vengeful  spirit  is  that  recorded 
in  I  Kings  2 : 5-9.    Joab  had  been  David's 


46  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

most  loyal  and  efficient  commander-in- 
chief.  He  had  been  friend  enough  to 
David  to  go  contrary  to  his  wishes  when 
to  have  obeyed  them  would  have  wrought 
harm  to  the  king  and  kingdom.  But 
Joab  had  \dolated  the  ethical  code  of  those 
days  in  his  murder  of  Abner  (II  Sam. 
3:27  f.)  and  again  in  his  cowardly  murder 
of  Amasa  (II  Sam.  20:8  f.).  Because  of 
these  things,  which  he  had  overlooked  at 
the  time  of  their  commission  when  Joab 
was  very  useful  to  him,  and  because  of 
other  things  such  as  the  killing  of  Absalom 
(II  Sam.  i8:i4f.)  which  David  had  never 
forgotten,  he  enjoins  his  son  Solomon  to 
do  away  with  the  old  warrior  at  the  first 
good  opportunity,  thus  passing  on  to  his 
son  that  which  he  himself  would  have 
rejoiced  to  do  if  he  had  only  dared.  Simi- 
larly in  the  case  of  Shimei,  though  he  had 
sworn  to  protect  him  when  he  might  have 
kiUed  him  and  brought  httle  if  any  blame 
upon  himself,  yet  now  upon  his  deathbed 
he    appoints    Solomon    his    executioner. 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  47 

Verily,    "the    ruling    passion    strong    in 
death."' 

Another  stain  upon  David's  name,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  later  times,  is  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  polygamist.  In  addition 
to  Ahinoam  the  Jezreehtess,  Abigail  the 
Carmelitess,  Michal  the  daughter  of  Saul, 
Bathsheba  the  wife  of  Uriah  the  Hittite, 
Maacah  the  daughter  of  Talmai  King  of 
Geshur,  Haggith  the  mother  of  Adonijah, 
Abital  the  mother  of  Shephatiah,  and 
Eglah  the  mother  of  Ithream  (II  Sam. 
3:2-4),  all  of  whom  he  married  before 
leaving  Hebron,  we  read,  "David  took 
him  more  concubines'*  and  wives  out  of 
Jerusalem,  after  he  was  come  from  Hebron. 

*  Many  interpreters  of  I  Kings  2 : 5-9  relieve  David 
of  the  stigma  of  this  story  by  declaring  this  passage  to  be 
of  far  later  origin  and  not  a  trustworthy  record.  But 
the  farther  down  this  passage  is  brought  in  time  the  harder 
is  it  to  account  for  the  origin  of  such  a  tale.  The  more 
David  became  idealized  the  less  and  less  Ukely  is  it  that 
tales  of  this  sort  should  have  been  concocted  about  him 
and  put  into  the  religious  record.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
the  things  here  narrated  are  entirely  in  keeping  with  the 
David  we  learn  to  know  in  the  oldest  sources. 

'II  Sam.  20:3  speaks  of  ten  concubines. 


48  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

And  there  were  yet  sons  and  daughters 
born  to  David.  And  these  are  the  names 
of  those  that  were  bom  to  him  in  Jerusa- 
lem: Shammua,  and  Shobab,  and  Nathan, 
and  Solomon,  and  Ibhar,  and  EHshua,  and 
Nepheg,  and  Japhia,  and  Elishama,  and 
Eliada,  and  Eliphalet"  (II  Sam.  5:13-16). 
It  need  hardly  be  said  that  David  was 
not  wholly  without  redeeming  features 
morally.  The  low  standards  of  his  age 
must  always  be  borne  in  mind.  The  way 
in  which  he  bound  his  personal  followers 
to  him  in  deathless  devotion  argues  con- 
vincingly for  the  possession  of  qualities  on 
David's  part  that  marked  him  as  a  leader 
among  men.  But  when  we  have  done 
full  justice  to  David's  personal  character, 
it  still  remains  to  be  asked  whether  or  not 
a  man  of  such  low  ideals  and  attainments 
as  are  revealed  by  the  facts  we  have  cited 
could  have  written  such  lofty  psalms  as 
many  of  those  ascribed  to  him.  Notice  at 
how  many  points  Psalm  15,  for  example, 
runs  counter  to  the  facts  of  David's  own 
Hfe: 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  49 

Yahweh,  who  may  sojourn  in  Thy  tent  ? 

Who  may  dwell  in  Thy  holy  hill  ? 

He  who  walks  blamelessly  and  works  righteousness, 

And  speaks  truth  in  his  heart, 

In  whose  tongue  there  is  no  deceit. 

He  does  no  injury  to  his  friend, 

Nor  does  he  bear  reproach  against  his  neighbors. 

The  one  doing  evil  is  despised  in  his  eyes. 

But  those  who  fear  Yahweh  he  honors. 

He  swears  to  his  own  hurt  and  changes  not. 

He  does  not  give  out  his  money  on  interest; 

Nor  has  he  taken  a  bribe  against  the  innocent. 

He  who  does  such  things  shall  never  be  moved. 

The  situation  does  not  improve  when  we 
move  over  into  the  theological  aspect  of 
David's  rehgion.  We  begin  with  the 
bringing  up  of  the  ark  into  Jerusalem 
(II  Sam.  6:12-23).  Here  David  is  at 
great  pains  to  do  Yahweh  honor.  Nothing 
irreverent  or  unseemly  would  be  tolerated 
for  a  moment.  Yet  David  danced  along 
the  highway  in  such  a  state  of  nudity  and 
abandon  that  his  wife  Michal  observing 
him  from  a  window  was  scandalized. 
Nor  is  there  any  reason  to  suppose  that 
Michal,  after  a  somewhat  exciting  marital 
career,  w^as  in  any  sense  a  prude.    But 


50  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

David  verily  thought  that  he  was  pleasing 
Yahweh.  What  sort  of  a  conception  of 
God  did  he  have  ? 

We  ask  the  same  question  when  we  read 
the  story  of  the  famine  in  II  Sam.  21 : 1-14. 
We  are  there  told  that  Saul  had  broken 
the  oath  of  Israel  to  the  Gibeonites  in  that 
he  had  slain  some  of  them,  though  Israel 
had  sworn  to  preserve  them  alive.  Yah- 
weh, seeing  that  SauFs  crime  was  not 
likely  to  be  punished  or  that  the  blood  of 
the  slain  Gibeonites  was  not  otherwise  to 
be  avenged,  sent  a  famine  upon  the  land 
of  Israel  for  three  long  years,  thus  visiting 
the  crime  of  Saul  upon  the  defenseless 
and  innocent  people  as  a  whole.  What 
a  drastic  vengeance!  David  thereupon 
"sought  the  face  of  Yahweh"  and  learned 
that  it  was  "for  Saul  and  for  his  bloody 
house,  because  he  put  to  death  the  Gibeon- 
ites." Upon  taking  up  the  matter  with 
the  Gibeonites  themselves,  David  is  given 
to  understand  that  nothing  less  than  the 
death  of  some  of  Saul's  descendants  will 
satisfy  the  demands  of  Gibeon.    Accord- 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  51 

ingly,  he  hands  over  to  the  Gibeonites  two 
of  the  sons  and  five  of  the  grandsons  of 
Saul.  These  are  hung  up  under  the 
broad  sky  and  the  hot  Syrian  sun,  and 
Rizpah,  heart-broken  mother,  is  left  guard- 
ing her  dead  from  the  ravenous  birds  and 
beasts  of  prey.  "And  after  that  God 
was  entreated  for  the  land."  What  bar- 
barous theology! 

An  altogether  similar  conception  of  God 
appears  in  the  narrative  regarding  the 
census  taken  by  David  (II  Sam.,  chap.  24). 
Yahweh  was  angry  against  Israel,  the 
occasion  of  the  wrath  not  being  given. 
Therefore  he  '^ moved  David"  to  number 
Israel.  After  David  had  carried  out  this 
divine  impulse,  he  was  stirred  by  remorse, 
realizing  that  the  thing  he  had  done  was 
wrong.  This  wrong  must  be  expiated. 
Therefore  the  word  of  Yahweh  comes 
through  the  prophet  Gad  offering  David 
a  choice  of  three  punishments.  These 
punishments  are  all  such  as  involve  the 
suffering  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  David 
chooses  a  three  days'  pestilence.     Before 


52  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

the  plague  has  run  its  full  course,  the 
prophet  orders  David  to  build  an  altar  on 
the  floor  of  Araunah  the  Jebusite,  and  there 
sacrifice  to  Yahweh.  David  does  as  in- 
structed and  once  more  "Yahweh  was 
entreated  for  the  land  and  the  plague  was 
stayed  from  Israel.'' 

Another  side  of  David's  conception  of 
God  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  whenever  he  is 
in  doubt  as  to  the  wise  and  right  course  of 
procedure  he  seeks  an  oracle  from  Yahweh. 
But  an  "oracle  from  Yahweh"  is  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  the  casting  of  lots.  It 
is  as  though  the  modern  man  were  to  lay 
his  difficulty  before  God  and  were  then  to 
step  out  from  under  all  responsibihty  for 
the  decision  by  flipping  a  coin.  No  seri- 
ously minded  and  genuinely  religious  man 
would  dream  of  such  procedure  today. 
That  the  usual  procedure  did  involve 
placing  alternatives  before  Yahweh  and 
taking  his  decision  between  them  is  clear 
from  such  records  as  I  Sam.  I4:i8f., 
36-42;  23:4,5,9-13;  II  Sam.  2:1;  5:19, 
22-24.     In  keeping  with  this  naive  idea 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  53 

of  God  is  the  fact  that  David's  wife  Michal 
kept  a  teraphim  in  the  house.  When 
Saul  sent  men  to  David's  home  to  seize 
him,  Michal  saved  her  husband's  life  by 
letting  him  down  through  a  window.  She 
then  gained  time  for  him  to  make  his 
escape  by  placing  a  teraphim  in  his  bed 
and  leading  the  unsuspecting  emissaries 
to  suppose  that  they  were  looking  at 
David  lying  sick  abed.  With  this  report 
they  returned  to  their  master  (I  Sam. 
I9:i2ff.).  The  teraphim  was  an  object 
of  worship  and  from  this  narrative  it  is 
quite  apparent  that  it  was  an  image  in 
human  form.  The  identity  of  the  image 
we  do  not  know;  but  whether  an  image 
of  Yahweh  or  of  some  other  god  than 
Yahweh,  the  outcome  is  in  neither  case  in 
keeping  with  a  high  idea  of  God  in  David's 
home. 

We  need  consider  only  one  more  side  of 
David's  God-idea.  This  is  presented  to 
our  view  in  an  incident  recorded  in  I  Sam., 
chap.  26.  David  was  being  chased  by  Saul 
from  pillar  to  post.    One   night  after  a 


54  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

careful  reconnoitre  he  and  Abishai  visited 
SauFs  camp  while  he  and  his  guard  were 
sleeping  and  carried  away  Saul's  spear  and 
water  jar.  The  next  morning  from  a 
neighboring  hillside  and  at  a  safe  distance 
David  taunted  Saul's  guards  with  their 
negligence.  Saul  heard  David's  voice  and 
took  up  the  conversation  with  him.  After 
disclaiming  any  evil  intent  toward  Saul, 
David  continues: 

If  it  be  Yahweh  that  has  stirred  thee  up  against 
me,  let  him  accept  an  offering;  but  if  it  be  the  children 
of  men  cursed  be  they  before  Yahweh;  for  they  have 
driven  me  out  this  day  that  I  should  not  cleave  unto 
the  inheritance  of  Yahweh,  saying:  "  Go,  serve  other 
gods."  Now,  therefore,  let  not  my  blood  fall  to 
the  earth  away  from  the  presence  of  Yahweh;  etc. 

It  is  quite  conceivable  in  David's  mind 
that  all  his  present  trouble  and  danger  at 
Saul's  hand  may  be  directly  due  to  Yah- 
weh's  inspiration.  If  such  should  be  the 
case,  it  is  unreasonable  that  Yahweh 
should  not  be  willing  to  square  accounts 
upon  the  receipt  of  the  proper  offering. 
If,  however,  it  be  not  Yahweh,  but  men 


The  Sweet  Singer  oj  Israel  55 

who  have  instigated  Saul,  curses  be  upon 
them  from  Yahweh.  That  is,  Yahweh 
may  curse  men  for  doing  what  he  might 
conceivably  have  done  himself  with  per- 
fect propriety.  But  whoever  may  be  at 
the  bottom  of  David's  trouble,  the  result 
is  the  same;  he  is  being  driven  out  from 
Yahweh's  land  into  a  strange  land  wherein 
he  will  be  under  the  sway  of  other  gods 
and  where  he  will  die  "away  from  the 
presence  of  Yahweh/'  David's  God  then 
is  restrained  within  certain  geographical 
boundaries.  That  is  to  say,  David  shares 
the  ideas  about  Deity  that  were  current 
in  his  day.  For  that  age  and  in  that 
part  of  the  world,  there  were  as  many 
gods  as  there  were  peoples.  Each  god 
looked  after  his  own  people.  Each  people 
worshiped  its  own  god  and  freely  acknowl- 
edged the  right  of  other  peoples  to  exercise 
the  same  privilege  for  themselves.  One 
god  was  as  real  as  another;  but  each  was 
limited  to  his  own  land  and  people.  A  good 
illustration  of  this  is  furnished  in  Judges, 
chapter  11.    Jephthah  is  there  represented 


56  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

as  engaged  in  diplomatic  correspondence 
with  the  king  of  the  Ammonites,  the  pur- 
pose of  the  negotiations  being  to  persuade 
Ammon  to  leave  Israel  in  peaceful  posses- 
sion of  territory  held  since  the  days  of  the 
first  entry  and  conquest.  In  this  corre- 
spondence Jephthah  says: 

Sihon  trusted  not  Israel  to  pass  through  his 
border,  but  Sihon  gathered  all  his  people  together, 
and  pitched  in  Jahaz  and  fought  against  Israel. 
And  Yahweh,  the  God  of  Israel,  delivered  Sihon 
and  aU  his  people  into  the  hand  of  Israel,  and  they 
smote  them;  so  Israel  possessed  all  the  land  of  the 
Amorites,  the  inhabitants  of  that  country.  And  they 
possessed  all  the  border  of  the  Amorites  from  the 
Amon  even  unto  the  Jabbok,  and  from  the  wilder- 
ness even  imto  the  Jordan.  So  now  Yahweh,  the 
God  of  Israel,  has  dispossessed  the  Amorites  from 
before  his  people  Israel  and  shouldest  thou  possess 
them?  Wilt  not  thou  possess  that  which  Chemosh 
thy  god  giveth  thee  to  possess?  So  whomsoever 
Yahweh  our  God  has  dispossessed  from  before  us, 
them  will  we  possess. 

It  is  at  once  evident  that  this  is  not 
monotheism,  but  a  full-fledged  polytheism. 
Quot  gentes  tot  dei.  A  parallel  case  is 
furnished  by  II  Kings  17:25.     The  Assyri- 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  57 

ans  captured  Samaria  and  deported  its 
population  in  part.  To  take  the  places 
vacated  by  the  exiles,  the  Assyrian  king 
sent  in  people  from  "Babylon,  Cuthah, 
Awah,    Hamath,    and    Sepharvaim   and 

placed  them  in  the  cities  of  Samaria 

And  so  it  was  that  at  the  beginning  of  their 
dwelling  there,  they  feared  not  Yahweh; 
therefore  Yahweh  sent  lions  among  them 
which  killed  some  of  them.  Wherefore 
they  spoke  to  the  king  of  Assyria,  saying, 
*The  nations  which  thou  hast  carried 
away  and  placed  in  the  cities  of  Samaria 
know  not  the  manner  of  the  God  of  the 
land;  therefore  he  has  sent  lions  among 
them,  and  behold,  they  slay  them,  because 
they  know  not  the  manner  of  the  God  of 
the  land.' "  Thereupon  one  of  the  captive 
Hebrew  priests  was  sent  back  home  to 
teach  the  newcomers  "the  manner  of  the 
God  of  the  land"  and  we  are  left  to  infer 
that  the  lions  were  thereby  reduced  to 
gentleness.  •  Of  similar  character  is  the 
idea  of  God  reflected  in  II  Sam.  15:75. 
Absalom    is    plotting    to    overthrow    his 


58  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

father  David.  But  he  cannot  carry  out 
his  nefarious  plot  in  Jerusalem  right  under 
David's  nose.  So  he  invents  an  excuse 
for  leaving  town.  It  runs  as  follows: 
Absalom  said  to  the  King,  "I  pray  thee, 
let  me  go  and  pay  my  vow  which  I  have 
vowed  to  Yahweh  in  Hebron.  For  thy 
servant  vowed  a  vow  while  I  abode  at 
Geshur  in  Aram,  saying,  'If  Yahweh  will 
indeed  bring  me  back  to  Jerusalem,  then 
I  will  serve  Yahweh.'"  Why  not  serve 
Yahweh  in  Jerusalem?  Because  the 
Yahweh  of  Jerusalem  was  not  the  Yahweh 
of  Hebron.  Somewhat  as  the  Baal  was 
locahzed  at  different  shrines  and  dissolved 
into  a  multiplicity  of  Baals,  or  to  descend 
to  modern  times,  even  as  the  power  of  God 
is  thought  of  as  manifesting  itself  at 
different  sacred  spots  or  in  connection 
with  various  relics,  so  Yahweh  was  evi- 
dently localized  at  different  shrines  and  the 
local  Yahwehs  were  more  or  less  independ- 
ent one  of  another.  A  payment  to  Yah- 
weh at  Jerusalem  would  not  satisfy  the 
obligation  to  Yahweh  at  Hebron.     Could 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  59 

a  man  holding  such  views  of  God  as  these 
have  written  such  psalms  as  those  which 
carry  David's  name?  Put  alongside  of 
David's  fear  of  being  driven  "away  from 
the  presence  of  Yahweh"  the  language  of 
Psalm  139: 

Whither  shall  I  go  from  Thy  spirit  ? 

Or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  Thy  presence  ? 

If  I  ascend  to  the  heavens,  Thou  art  there; 

If  I  make  my  bed  in  Sheol,  behold  Thou  art  there. 

If  I  should  take  the  wings  of  the  morning, 

And  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea, 

Even  there  would  Thy  hand  lead  me, 

And  Thy  right  hand  would  hold  me. 

Or  if  I  say:  "Surely  the  darkness  will  cover  me," 

Then  the  night  becomes  light  about  me. 

Even  the  darkness  is  not  too  dark  for  Thee; 

But  the  night  shineth  as  the  day; 

The  darkness  is  the  same  as  the  light. 

This  kind  of  incompatibility  hes  not 
merely  in  the  realm  of  the  emotions  or 
sensibilities,  but  is  involved  in  the  strictly 
intellectual  or  rational  processes  of  the 
mind.  We  could  as  easily  think  of  a  man 
who  had  not  gone  beyond  the  multiplica- 
tion tables  in  his  mathematical  training  as 
writing  treatises  on  integral   calculus  or 


6o  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

differential  equations  as  to  imagine  the 
David  of  the  Books  of  Samuel  writing  the 
seventy-three  psalms  assigned  to  him  by 
tradition.  Nor  could  they  have  been 
written  in  their  present  form  for  centuries 
after  David's  day.  For  David  was  a 
typical  man  of  his  age  and  fairly  repre- 
sents the  theological  and  religious  thought 
of  his  day. 

To  arrive  at  the  foregoing  conclusion  is 
not  the  same  as  to  say  either  that  David 
wrote  no  psalms  or  that  there  are  none  of 
his  psalms  in  the  Psalter.  Since  David 
was  as  we  have  recognized  both  a  poet  and 
a  deeply  rehgious  man,  and  since  a  tra- 
dition of  psalm  writing  has  attached  itself 
to  his  name,  the  probability  is  that  he 
actually  did  write  some  religious  songs. 
It  would  be  strange  if  he  had  not  done  so. 
And  it  may  indeed  be  that  some  of  his 
psalms  are  actually  in  the  Psalter.  But  if 
so,  they  have  undergone  so  great  a  meta- 
morphosis that  David  himself  would  have 
great  diihculty  in  identifying  his  literary 
offspring.     This  is  due  to  the  fact  brought 


The  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel  6i 

out  in  our  first  chapter.  The  necessity 
of  keeping  a  national  hymn  book  in  close 
touch  with  the  developing  thought  of  the 
people  would  work  radical  changes  in  the 
content  and  spirit  of  David's  songs  as  they 
came  down  through  the  centuries.  The 
crude  thinking  of  the  historical  David 
would  jar  upon  the  finer  feelings  of  his 
descendants  whose  minds  had  been  clari- 
fied by  the  observation  of  centuries  of 
history  and  whose  lives  had  been  moralized 
by  the  work  of  the  great  prophets.  Hence 
it  is  little  more  than  a  waste  of  time  to 
attempt  to  discover  the  original  Davidic 
elements  in  the  Psalter.  Time  and  effort 
are  spent  to  far  greater  advantage  in  the 
effort  to  understand  and  appreciate  at  their 
full  value  the  Psalms  as  they  have  come 
to  us.  The  really  important  question 
after  all,  is  not,  Who  wrote  the  Psahns  ? 
but,  What  are  the  meaning  and  value  of 
the  Psalms  themselves  ?  Truth  and  value 
are  not  dependent  upon  questions  of  origin, 
but  upon  the  degree  of  success  with  which 
the  Psalms  have  functioned  in  the  religious 


62  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

experience  of  the  past  and  will  continue 
to  function  in  the  experience  of  coming 
generations.  On  the  latter  score  the 
Psalms  have  nothing  to  fear  if  they  are 
but  rightly  read  and  understood.  They 
are  their  own  best  witness. 


Ill 

SUFFERING  AND  SONG 

The  fact  of  human  suffering,  with  the 
problems    arising    therefrom,    has    chal- 
lenged the  best  thought  of  the  race  from 
time    immemorial.     It    has    called    forth 
the  finest  products  in  the  world's  litera- 
ture.    Sorrow  is  the  theme  of  the  great 
tragedies  that  grip  our  souls.     Comedy 
has  its  place,  but  upon  a  lower  level. 
Paradise  Lost  is  the  outstanding  poem  of 
English  speech.     The  Book  of  Job  has 
been  called  the  world's  greatest  book,  and 
its  sole  concern  is  with  the  problem  of 
suffering.     This  is  the  perennial  and  para- 
mount problem.     All  others  shrink  into 
insignificance  before  it.     It  ennobles  what- 
ever it  touches  and  lifts  the  soul  of  man 
to  its  loftiest  heights. 

What  is  true  of  literature  in  general, 
is  especially  true  of  the  Old  Testament. 
It  is  the  literature  of  suffering  that 
takes  the  leadmg  place  in  the  Hebrew 

63 


64  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

Scriptures — the  Book  of  Job,  the  servant 
passages  in  Isaiah  (chapters  40-55)  and  the 
Book  of  Psalms  are  the  three  great  out- 
standing Hebrew  discussions  of  the  prob- 
lem of  suffering.  It  is  with  the  last  of 
these  three  that  we  are  here  concerned. 

We  might  well  say  that  suffering  is  the 
central  theme  of  the  Psalter — of  the  150 
psahns  of  which  it  is  composed,  about  90 
concern  themselves  more  or  less  directly 
with  some  aspect  of  this  problem.  Indeed 
the  first  Psalm,  which  may  properly  be 
thought  of  as  the  preface  to  the  Psalter, 
strikes  the  keynote  of  the  whole  book 
and  states  the  view  of  suffering  that  pre- 
vails throughout. 

This  interest  in  and  emphasis  upon  the 
thought  of  suffering  is  but  a  reflection  of 
the  experience  of  the  times  in  which  most 
of  the  psalms  were  written.  The  Psalter 
was  the  hymn  book  of  postexihc  Judaism; 
and  as  such  it  must  perforce  enter  into  the 
thoughts  and  problems  of  the  people  whose 
religious  needs  it  sought  to  express  and  to 
satisfy.    But  for  that  period  the  outstand- 


Suffering  and  Song  65 

ing  problem  was  that  forced  upon  their 
minds  by  their  repeated  misfortunes. 
In  597  B.C.  had  occurred  the  first  great  de- 
portation of  Jews  to  Babylon.  This  was 
followed  by  another  one  in  586,  at 
which  time  the  temple  was  destroyed  and 
the  Jewish  state  brought  to  an  end.  The 
discouragement  and  longing  of  Judaism 
are  feelingly  expressed  in  Psalm  137: 

By  the  rivers  of  Babylon, 

There  we  sat  down,  yea,  we  wept, 

When  we  remembered  Zion. 

Upon  the  willows  in  the  midst  thereof 

We  hanged  up  our  harps. 

For  there  they  that  lead  us  captive  asked  of  us 

words  of  song, 
And  our  tormentors  asked  of  us  mirth — 
"  Sing  us  one  of  the  Soags  of  Zion." 

How  can  we  sing  Yahweh's  song 

In  a  foreign  land  ? 

If  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem, 

Let  my  right  hand  forget  her  cunning; 

Let  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth, 

If  I  remember  thee  not, 

If  I  set  not  Jerusalem 

Above  my  chiefest  joy. 

With  the  appearance  of  Cyrus  upon  the 
poHtical  horizon,  alert  spirits  among  the 


66  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

exiles  began  to  encourage  their  people 
with  hopes  of  deliverance  and  return. 
Among  these  the  writer  of  Isaiah,  chapters 
40-55,  takes  the  leading  place.  He  looks 
forward  to  the  final  victory  of  Cyrus  as 
ushering  in  the  golden  age.  He  paints 
glowing  pictures  of  the  glory  of  redeemed 
Israel.  By  every  possible  device  of  ora- 
tory and  poetry,  he  strives  to  kindle  in 
the  hearts  of  his  contemporaries  the 
same  faith  and  hope  that  burn  so  brightly 
in  his  own  bosom.  At  last  the  great 
anticipated  day  arrives.  Small  companies 
of  enthusiasts  take  up  the  return  to  Jerusa- 
lem. It  is  a  day  of  great  expectations. 
But  the  event  did  not  come  up  to  the  an- 
ticipations. The  ruined  temple  did  not  rise 
phoenix-like  from  its  ashes.  The  demol- 
ished walls  staid  flat  upon  the  ground  in 
spite  of  faith  and  prayer.  The  handful 
of  returning  pilgrims  found  itself  insig- 
nificant and  poverty  stricken.  The  hard 
labors  of  the  farmer  in  the  fields  yielded 
small  returns  to  meet  the  high  cost  of 
living.     This   state   of   affairs   is   clearly 


Suffering  and  Song  67 

depicted  in  the  words  of  Haggai  speaking 
about  520,  just  a  few  years  after  the  return 
had  begun : 

Ye  have  sown  much,  and  brought  m  little, 
Ye  eat,  but  ye  have  not  enough; 
Ye  drink,  but  ye  are  not  filled  with  drink; 
Ye  clothe  you,  but  there  is  none  warm; 
And  he  that  earneth  wages  eameth  wages 
For  a  bag  with  holes. 

High  hopes  and  lofty  aspirations  gave 
place  to  indifference  and  materialism, 
discouragement  and  despair,  doubt  and 
gloom.  Into  such  a  situation  came  Haggai 
and  Zechariah  with  a  fresh  call  to  idealism 
and  high  endeavor.  "Build  the  temple, 
it  is  the  word  of  Yahweh  of  hosts;  and  in  a 
little  while,  I  will  shake  the  heavens  and 
the  earth,  and  the  sea  and  the  dry  land;  and 
I  will  shake  all  nations,  and  the  choicest 
things  of  all  nations  shall  come;  and  I 
will  fill  this  house  with  glory.''  Haggai 
and  Zechariah  were  so  confident  of  the 
correctness  of  their  solution  of  Israel's 
problem  that  they  did  not  hesitate  to 
announce  the  coming  of  the  messianic  age 


6S  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

when  the  temple  should  be  completed, 
and  they  even  went  so  far  as  to  identify 
Zerubbabel,  the  builder  of  the  temple, 
with  the  long-hoped-for  Messiah.'  The 
messianic  boom  of  Zerubbabel  collapsed 
with  a  crash  and  buried  the  hope  of  Israel 
in  its  ruins. 

Such  experiences  were  all  too  frequent 
in  later  Judaism.  The  unquenchable 
patriotism  and  high  hope  of  Jewry  broke 
out  in  revolt  against  the  tyranny  of  Arta- 
xerxes  Ochus  (358-337  B.C.)  and  brought 
upon  itself  terrible  reprisals.  Alexander 
the  Great  destroyed  the  former  tyrants, 
but  wholly  failed  to  satisfy  the  aspirations 
of  Judaism.  The  armies  of  Syria  and 
Egypt  under  the  Seleucidae  and  the 
Ptolemies,  rivals  for  world  dominion, 
made  the  fields  of  Palestine  their  battle- 
groimd,  thus  making  the  home  of  Israel 
a  veritable  no-man's  land.  Finally  the 
madman  Antiochus  Epiphanes  (175- 
164  B.C.)  played  battledore  and  shuttle- 
cock with  the  fortunes  of  Judah.    Never 

»Hag.  2:23;  Zech.  3:8;4:7-9;6:9-i3» 


Suffering  and  Song  69 

did  a  people  suffer  worse  things  for 
their  faith  than  the  Jews  of  the  Maccabean 
struggle. 

The  effect  of  this  oft-repeated  and  long- 
continued  disappointment  and  suffering 
upon  the  mind  of  the  faithful  is  evident 
from  such  a  passage  as  Isa.  26:17-18: 

Like  as  a  woman  with  child  that  draweth  near  the 

time  of  her  deHvery 
Is  in  pain  and  crieth  out  in  her  pangs, 
So  have  we  been  at  Thy  presence,  O  Yahweh; 
We  have  been  with  child,  we  have  been  in  pain, 
We  have  as  it  were  brought  forth  wind; 
We  have  not  wrought  any  deliverance  in  the  earth; 
Neither  are  the  inhabitants  of  the  world  come  to  life. 

Others  were  driven  further  in  their  dis- 
appointment and  stood  ready  to  repudiate 

the  righteousness  of  God.  Witness  Mai. 
2:17: 

You  have  wearied  Yahweh  with  your  words, 

Yet  you  say  "Wherein  have  we  wearied  him  ?" 

In  that  you  are  saying  "Every  one  that  doeth  evil 

Is  good  in  the  sight  of  Yahweh, 

And  he  delights  in  them  " — 

Or,  "Where  is  the  God  of  Justice?" 

Against  such  a  background  the  Psalter 
is  to  be  interpreted.     Amid  such  cross- 


70  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

currents  of  hope  and  despair,  of  doubt  and 
faith,  it  came  into  being  and  it  found 
acceptance.  We  might  almost  call  it  a 
Manual  for  Mourners.  Naturally  then 
the  idea  of  suffering  and  the  fact  of  sorrow 
occupy  a  central  place  in  its  pages.  The 
writers  and  users  of  the  Psalter  lived  in 
a  world  that  had  inherited  a  theory  of 
suffering.  The  prophets  had  formulated 
that  theory  with  unmistakable  clearness 
and  authority.  It  had  become  the  ortho- 
dox doctrine  of  the  day  upon  the  subject 
of  suffering.  Isaiah  had  formulated  it 
thus: 

If  you  be  willing  and  obedient, 
You  shall  eat  the  good  of  the  land; 
But  if  you  refuse  and  rebel, 
You  shall  be  devoured  with  the  sword. 

Stated  in  commonplace  terms,  this 
teaching  is  that  prosperity  is  the  reward 
of  piety  and  adversity  is  the  punishment  of 
sin.  Good  people  will  always  prosper; 
bad  people  will  fall  prey  to  trouble,  mis- 
fortune, and  death. 

This  altogether  too  simple  solution  of 
the  problem  of  life  had  already  aroused 


Suffering  and  Song  71 

question.  The  experiences  of  everyday 
life  and  the  facts  of  common  observation 
had  thrown  doubt  upon  its  vaUdity. 
Habakkuk  had  dared  to  challenge  the 
Almighty  to  show  cause  why  in  the  light 
of  Hebrew  history  he  should  not  be  charged 
with  maladministration  of  the  moral  uni- 
verse. The  author  of  Isaiah,  chapters 
40-55,  had  worked  out  in  the  Servant 
Songs  a  new  theory,  viz.,  that  the  sufferings 
of  Israel  were  of  vicarious  significance  and 
function  and  were  to  work  out  for  the 
benefit  of  the  world  at  large.  But  more 
than  all,  the  Book  of  Job  had  attacked 
the  problem  of  suffering  boldly  and 
frankly  and  had  smashed  the  traditional 
dogma  beyond  all  possibility  of  restora- 
tion to  its  original  form.  But  there  is 
nothing  so  hard  to  kill  as  dogmas;  they 
have  a  way  of  living  long  after  they  are 
dead.  That  is  the  situation  with  the 
doctrine  of  suffering  in  the  Psalter.  The 
old  orthodox  theory  still  reigns  supreme. 
It  greets  us  upon  the  first  page  of  the 
Psalter  in  full  vigor: 


72  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

O,  the  happiness  of  the  man  who  has  not  walked 
in  the  counsel  of  the  ungodly, 

Nor  stood  in  the  way  of  sinners, 

Nor  sat  in  the  seat  of  the  scornful; 

Whose  delight  is  in  the  law  of  Yahweh, 

And  in  His  law  doth  he  meditate  day  and  night. 

Such  an  one  is  Hke  a  tree  planted  by  streams  of 
water, 

That  yieldeth  its  fruit  in  its  season, 

And  its  leaf  does  not  wither; 

Yea,  everything  that  he  does  prospers. 

Not  so  the  wicked! 

On  the  contrary,  they  are  like  chaff  which  the 
wind  drives  away; 

Therefore  the  wicked  do  not  stand  in  the  judg- 
ment, 

Nor  sinners  in  the  congregation  of  the  righteous — • 

For  Yahweh  knows  the  way  of  the  righteous, 

But  the  way  of  the  wicked  shall  perish. 

In    similar   strain    does    the   poet    of 
Psalm  128  sing: 

Happy  is  everyone  that  fears  Yahweh, 

That  walks  in  His  ways. 

When  thou  eatest  the  labor  of  thy  hands, 

Happy  art  thou  and  it  is  well  with  thee; 

Thy  wife  shall  be  as  a  fruitful  vine  in  the  inmost 

circles  of  thy  house, 
Thy  children  like  olive  plants  around  thy  table. 
Lo,  thus  indeed  will  the  man  be  blessed, 
That  fears  Yahweh. 


Suffering  and  Song  73 

This  orthodoxy  is  scarcely  questioned 
in  the  Psalter.  The  legitimate  function 
of  doubt,  inquiry,  and  investigation  finds 
no  recognition.  This  is,  of  course,  natural, 
in  view  of  the  purpose  and  function  of  the 
Psalter  in  Judaism.  We  do  not  hymn 
our  doubts  and  our  problems  in  the  great 
congregation.  We  come  together  to 
strengthen  one  another  by  our  common 
enthusiasms  and  loyalties,  not  to  disturb 
and  weaken  by  adding  new  troubles  to  those 
already  possessed.  The  Psalter  was  the 
Jewish  hymn  book,  not  a  treatise  upon  sys- 
tematic theology  nor  a  handbook  of  ethics. 

Let  us  then  turn  to  a  survey  of  the 
reactions  upon  suffering  on  the  part  of  the 
orthodox  and  pious  saints  in  Jewry  who 
found  the  religion  of  the  Psalter  adequate 
to  their  intellectual  and  spiritual  needs. 
What  attitudes  toward  the  personal  and 
community  disappointments,  wrongs,  and 
tragedies  are  to  be  found  in  the  Psalms  ? 
Under  the  shadow  of  the  accepted  theory 
that  suffering  always  means  punishment 
for  sin,  whether  conscious  or  unconscious. 


74  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

we  should  expect  to  find  some  psalms 
expressive  of  a  spirit  of  repentance.  We 
are  suffering;  therefore  we  have  sinned; 
hence  it  behooves  us  to  repent  that  the 
suffering  may  give  place  to  joy.  Such 
psalms  do  appear;  the  most  familiar  one 
probably  is  the  51st  wherein  some  stricken 
soul  pours  forth  its  sense  of  guilt  and  its 
cry  for  cleansing  and  pardon. 

Be  gracious  unto  me,  O  God,  in  accordance 

with  thy  mercy; 
In  accordance  with  the  multitude  of 
Thy  compassions  blot  out  my  transgressions. 
Wash  me  thoroughly  from  mine  iniquity. 
And  cleanse  me  from  my  sin. 
For  I  know  my  transgressions, 
And  my  sin  is  ever  before  me. 

Purge  me  with  hyssop  that  I  may  be  clean, 
Wash  me  that  I  may  be  whiter  than  snow. 

Hide  thy  face  from  my  sin, 
And  blot  out  all  mine  iniquities; 
Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  O  God, 
And  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me. 
Cast  me  not  away  from  Thy  presence; 
And  take  not  Thy  holy  spirit  from  me. 

Similar  sentiments  appear  in  Psalms  31 
and  32  and  elsewhere;   but  there  is  rela- 


Suffering  and  Song  75 

tively  slight  emphasis  in  the  Psalter  upon 
penitence  or  upon  the  necessity  of  repent- 
ance. There  is  much  more  expression  of 
the  feeling  of  discouragement.  And  what 
more  natural  under  the  circumstances? 
The  Psalter  was  the  hymn  book  of  the 
Jewish  community.  It  voiced  the  hopes 
and  sorrows  of  the  people  as  a  whole  to 
quite  as  great  an  extent,  at  least,  as  it 
gave  utterance  to  the  ideals  of  individuals. 
And  what  ground  was  there  for  encourage- 
ment in  the  greater  part  of  the  period 
during  which  the  Psalter  grew  up  and 
came  into  general  use  ?  It  is  a  baffled  and 
downcast  patriotism  that  speaks  in  such 
lines  as  these  from  Psalm  60: 

O  God,  thou  hast  cast  us  off!    Thou  hast  broken 

us  down; 
Thou  hast  been  angry;  O  restore  us. 
Thou  hast  made  the  land  to  shake, 

Thou  hast  cleft  it. 
Heal  the  breaches  thereof,  for  it  is  tottering. 
Thou  hast  made  Thy  people  to  see  hard  things, 
Thou  hast  made  us  to  drink  the  wine  of  staggering. 

O  that  He  would  bring  me  into  the  fortified  city, 
That  He  would  lead  me  into  Edom. 
Hast  not  Thou,  O  God,  cast  us  off? 
And  Thou  goest  not  forth  with  our  hosts. 


76  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

Conscious  of  the  integrity  of  himself 
and  his  people  and  resentful  of  malicious 
charges  not  rightfully  incurred,  another 
poet  in  Psalm  69  thus  pictures  the  Jewish 
state  of  mind : 

Save  me,  O  God; 

For  the  waters  are  come  in  even  unto  the  soul; 

I  am  sunk  in  deep  mire,  where  there  is  no  foothold; 

I  am  come  into  deep  waters,  and  the  flood  over- 
whelms me. 

I  am  weary  of  crying,  my  throat  is  parched, 

Mine  eyes  fail,  while  I  wait  for  my  God. 

They  that  hate  me  without  cause  are  more  than 
the  hairs  of  my  head; 

They  that  would  cut  me  off,  being  my  enemies 
wrongfully,  are  many. 

Should  I  restore  that  which  I  did  not  steal  ? 

Because  for  Thy  sake  I  have  borne  reproach, 
Confusion  has  covered  my  face. 
I  am  become  a  stranger  unto  my  brethren, 
And  an  aHen  unto  my  mother's  children, 
Because  zeal  for  Thy  house  has  eaten  me  up, 
And  the  reproaches  of  them  that  reproach  Thee 

are  fallen  upon  me. 
And  I  wept  with  my  soul  fasting, 
And  that  became  unto  me  a  reproach. 
I  made  sackcloth  also  my  garment, 
And  I  became  a  byword  unto  them. 
They  that  sit  in  the  gate  talk  of  me; 
And  I  am  the  song  of  the  drunkards. 


Suffering  and  Song  77 

But  the  masterpiece  among  these  elegies 
is  that  which  was  Hfted  into  imperishable 
glory  as  the  vehicle  for  the  cry  of  the 
broken  heart  of  the  Man  upon  the  Cross — 
as  the  sorrowing,  almost  despairing,  lament 
of  a  weary  and  worn  people  it  has  never 
been  surpassed  (Psalm  22): 

My  God,  My  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me  ? 
Far  from  my  Helper  are  the  words  of  groaning. 
My  God,  I  cry  in  the  day  time  and  Thou  dost 

not  answer, 
And  in  the  night  there  is  no  surcease  for  me. 
Yet  Thou  art  holy, 

O  Thou  that  dwellest  in  the  praises  of  Israel; 
In  Thee  our  fathers  trusted; 
They  trusted  and  Thou  didst  rescue  them; 
Unto  Thee  they  cried  and  were  delivered; 
In  Thee  they  trusted  and  were  not  ashamed. 
But  I  am  a  worm  and  not  a  man;. 
A  reproach  of  mankind  and  despised  of  people; 
AH  who  see  me  laugh  me  to  scorn; 
They  open  wide  their  mouths,  they  wag  the  head: 
''Let  him  commit  himself  unto  Yahweh!    Let 

Him  rescue  him; 
Let  Him  deliver  him,  seeing  He  dehghts  in  him." 

Let  it  not  be  supposed,  however,  that 
the  blasted  hopes  of  Judaism  expended 
themselves  merely  in  confession  and  lamen- 


78  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

tation.  There  was  too  much  viriHty  in 
the  Jewish  soul  to  permit  of  such  unmiti- 
gated weakness.  Consequently  this  aspect 
of  their  disappointment  was  supplemented 
by  a  vigorous  outpouring  of  wrath  against 
those  who  had  been  the  agents  of  their 
calamity.  This  spirit  is  given  strong 
utterance  in  many  psalms,  of  which  the 
best  (or  shall  I  say  the  worst  ?)  examples 
are  the  55th,  69th,  83d,  109th,  and 
137th.  These  are  commonly  known  as 
the  Imprecatory  Psalms.  A  few  stanzas 
will  call  them  sharply  to  our  memories: 

Thou  knowest  my  reproach, 

And  my  shame  is  before  all  my  oppressors; 

Reproach  has  broken  my  heart, 

And  incurable  is  the  hurt  of  my  soul. 

And  I  looked  for  a  comforter,  and  there  was  none, 

And  for  consolers,  and  I  found  none. 

But  they  put  poison  in  my  food, 

And  made  me  drink  vinegar  for  my  thirst. 

Let  their  table  become  a  snare  before  them, 

And  a  trap  to  them  when  unsuspecting; 

Let  their  eyes  be  darkened  that  they  may  not  see, 

And  make  their  loins  tremble  continually. 

Pour  out  Thy  fury  upon  them, 

And  may  Thy  hot  anger  overtake  them. 

Let  their  camp  be  devastated, 


Suffering  and  Song  79 

And  may  there  be  none  dwelling  in  their  tents; 
For  they  harass  him  whom  Thou  hast  smitten, 
And  unto  the  misery  of  those  whom  Thou  hast 

wounded  they  add. 
Add  guilt  unto  their  guilt, 
And  let  them  not  enter  into  Thy  vindication; 
May  they  be  blotted  out  of  the  book  of  life. 
And  not  be  written  among  the  righteous. 

[Ps.  69:20-29]. 

Lest  that  be  not  savage  enough,  let  us 

add  one  more  passage: 

They  have  laid  upon  me  evil  for  good, 
And  hatred  for  my  love. 
Set  Thou  a  wicked  man  against  him, 
And  let  an  adversary  stand  at  his  right  hand. 
When  he  goes  to  Court,  let  him  come  forth  guilty, 
And  may  his  very  prayer  itself  become  a  sin. 
May  his  days  be  few, 
And  let  another  take  his  office; 
May  his  children  be  fatherless, 
And  his  wife  a  widow; 
May  his  children  be  vagabonds  and  beg, 
And  be  ejected  from  their  ruins; 
May  the  creditor  levy  upon  all  that  he  has. 
And  may  strangers  plunder  his  hard  earnings. 
May  there  be  none  to  shew  him  pity, 
Nor  any  shewing  favor  to  his  fatherless  children. 
May  his  posterity  be  cut  off, 
And  his  name  wiped  out  in  one  generation; 
May  the  guilt  ot  his  fathers  be  brought  to  Yahweh's 
remembrance, 


8o  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

And  the  sin  of  his  mother  not  be  wip>ed  out. 
Let  them  be  before  Yahweh  continually, 
That  He  may  cut  off  memory  of  them  from  the 
earth.  [Ps.  109:6-17]. 

As  we  read  these  and  similar  passages 
in  cold  blood,  they  shock  our  finer  senti- 
ments. We  shrink  from  such  inhumanity. 
For  those  holding  the  traditional  concep- 
tion of  Scripture  these  Imprecatory  Psalms 
constitute  an  almost  insurmountable  prob- 
lem, a  crux  interpretum.  But  to  the 
modern  student  such  psalms  are  quite 
intelligible  and  not  wholly  inexcusable. 
The  Hebrew  poets  of  religion  were  after 
all  men,  and  very  human  men  at  that. 
Inspired  men?  Yes,  certainly;  but  none 
the  less,  yea,  all  the  more  on  that  account, 
men.  Inspiration  does  not  dehumanize; 
rather  it  raises  humanity  to  its  highest 
power.  This  case  is  no  exception  to  the 
foregoing  general  principle.  Anger  is  a 
genuinely  human  characteristic,  with  le- 
gitimate as  well  as  illegitimate  functions. 
The  admirable  thing  about  the  wrath 
of  the  Imprecatory  Psalms  is  that  it  is  in 


Suffering  and  Song  8i 

the  main  right;  perhaps,  we  might  ahnost 
say,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  times 
in  which  they  were  written,  wholly  right. 
The  wonder  is  that  Jewry,  not  only  in 
those  days  but  down  through  all  its  his- 
tory, has  so  consistently  confined  its 
savagery  to  literary  expression,  and  with 
rare  exceptions  has  not  sought  to  give  it 
reaUstic  outlet  even  when  full  opportunity 
for  such  vengeance  lay  to  hand. 

Let  us  not  forget  then  that  the  psalmists 
were  men,  and  that  the  wrong  and  bru- 
tality of  the  treatment  Judaism  had  to 
undergo  at  the  hands  of  her  conquerors 
and  persecutors  tried  their  humanity  to 
the  utmost.  We  have  had  in  our  own  day 
closely  analogous  situations  thrust  upon 
our  attention.  The  German  treatment  of 
the  Belgian,  French,  and  Serbian  "occu- 
pied territory"  with  its  population,  and  the 
Turco- German  treatment  of  the  Armenians 
are  too  well  known  to  need  elaboration. 
Are  we  to  suppose  that  under  the  adminis- 
tration of  such  inhuman  and  bestial  con- 
querors, the  Belgians,  French,  Armenians, 


82  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

and  Serbians  went  about  repeating,  for 
their  own  edification  and  that  of  their 
murderers,  the  beautiful  words  of  the 
thirteenth  chapter  of  I  Corinthians  ?  That 
was  no  time  for  meditations  upon  brotherly 
love.  All  through  that  period  the  lex 
talionis  was  upon  the  statute  books  of 
Israel.  '^An  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth 
for  a  tooth''  was  the  law  of  man  and  of 
God.  The  Christian  ideal,  "Love  thine 
enemy,"  was  not  yet  born. 

Further,  the  orthodoxy  of  the  day  was 
threatened;  and  do  we  not  too  well  know 
the  wrath  of  an  imperiled  orthodoxy? 
The  righteous  nation  should  prosper  and 
the  wicked  should  come  to  grief.  But 
the  situation  as  an  actual  fact  was  the 
exact  reverse  of  this  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  exilic  and  postexilic  history. 
The  wonder  is  that  Jewish  orthodoxy 
defied  the  facts  of  experience  so  obstinately 
and  so  long.  A  drastic  punishment  of  the 
wicked  foes  of  Israel  was  the  imperative 
demand  of  the  situation  as  interpreted  by 
the  great  masses  of  the  saints. 


Suffering  and  Song  83 

But    such    punishment    was    also    the 
demand  of  justice  as  well  as  of  orthodoxy. 
We  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  favor  of 
God  was  by  the  Jew  conceived  of  not  along 
exclusively  and  highly  spiritual  lines,  but 
rather  in  a  very  substantial  and  materi- 
ahstic  way.     The  people   of   God   must 
prosper  economically  and  poHtically;    all 
who  wrong   them  must  be    overthrown, 
destroyed    like    Nineveh    and    Babylon. 
Only  so  could  the  moral  order  of  the  Uni- 
verse  be    conserved.     The    character    of 
God    was    at    stake.     There    were    not 
wanting   those,    as    we   have   seen,    who 
were  already  charging  him  with  indiffer- 
ence,   yea,    with    impotence — God    must 
show  himself  God  if  he  would  hold  the 
hearts  of  his  people.     Thus  it  appears  that 
the  whole  fabric  of  Jewish  religion  was 
bound  up  with  this  hope  of  retribution 
upon    the    tyrannical    nations.      Conse- 
quently we   need    not  wonder   that   the 
words  of  Jewish  poets  upon  this  subject 
were  intense  and   burning.     This  is  still 
more  explicable  when  we  recall  that  there 


84  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

was  no  widespread  or  vital  hope  of  a  worth- 
ful  life  hereafter  among  the  Jews.  The 
rewards  and  punishments  of  God  must  be 
distributed  in  the  world  that  now  is.  The 
Jews  did  not  comfort  themselves  in  present 
sufferings  by  anticipations  of  future  com- 
pensating glory.  It  remained  for  later 
Jewish  thought  to  conceive  of  Dives  and 
Lazarus.  But  when  the  problem  of 
rewards  and  punishments  is  conceived 
of  in  materialistic  terms  and  is  limited  to 
the  present  life,  it  becomes  correspond- 
ingly urgent  and  gives  rise  to  passionate 
hopes  and  desires.  Then,  too,  we  cannot 
overlook  the  fact  that  the  Jewish  anger 
against  their  oppressors  and  tormentors 
was  but  the  reverse  side  and  the  measure 
of  their  passion  for  justice.  We  do  our 
civilization  small  credit  if  we  can  sit  by 
unmoved  at  the  spectacle  of  oppression 
and  violence  whether  at  the  expense  of 
ourselves  or  of  others.  Our  sense  of  right 
will  inevitably  react  violently  and  effec- 
tively against  injustice  in  proportion  as 
it  is  well  informed  and  rightly  energized. 


Suffering  and  Song  85 

To  gaze  upon  ruthless  wrong  with  unruJQBed 
spirit  is  the  sign  of  a  degenerate.  It  would 
ill  become  us  in  the  light  of  our  recent  ex- 
periences to  fail  to  appreciate  profoundly 
the  ideals  and  convictions  of  the  men  who 
wrote  and  sang  the  Imprecatory  Psalms. 

In  treating  the  attitude  of  the  psalmists 
toward  suffering,  we  cannot  stop  before 
briefly  noting  the  consolations  that  sus- 
tained them  in  the  midst  of  trying  times 
and  the  compensations  of  spirit  that 
came  to  them  as  a  direct  contribution  from 
their  hard  experience.  The  outstanding 
movement  in  postexiHc  thought  was  mes- 
sianism.  This  was  the  community's  escha- 
tology  of  hope.  Israel  might  be  suffering 
now,  to  be  sure,  but  the  day  is  near  at 
hand  when  she  will  see  herself  righted 
before  the  world  and  her  foes  humiliated 
in  defeat  and  subjection.  This  period  is 
to  be  inaugurated  by  the  enthronement 
of  a  Messiah  in  Judah  and  from  his  throne 
in  Jerusalem  he  wiU  rule  the  world.  The 
history  of  Judaism  is  the  story  of  the  rise 
and    fall    of    one    messianic    hope    after 


86  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

another.  Through  this  hope  the  com- 
munity triumphed  over  doubt  and  defeat. 
Each  new  calamity  was  heralded  as  the 
last.  It  was  the  final  preparation  for  the 
coming  of  the  Great  Day,  whose  clouds 
and  darkness  would  roll  away,  revealing 
to  the  waiting  world  the  splendid  brilHance 
of  the  messianic  dawn. 

The  Psalter  as  the  hymn  book  of  the 
exilic  community  could  not  escape  the 
influence  of  this  undying  hope.  It  sings  in 
the  psalms,  sometimes  in  plaintive  strains, 
sometimes  in  the  terrible  diapason  of 
wrath,  and  sometimes  in  an  exultant 
chorus  of  exuberant  joy;  in  one  form  or 
another  it  bursts  forth  on  every  page  like  a 
foimtain  of  pure  water  from  the  well  spring 
of  life.  Again  and  again  this  hope  assumes 
the  form  of  fervent  appeals  to  Yahweh  to 
reveal  himself  in  punitive  wrath  against 
the  oppressors  of  his  people.  The  great 
90th  Psalm  cannot  close  without  a  cry  to 
Yahweh  for  relief: 

Return,  O  Yahweh,  how  long  ? 

And  let  it  repent  Thee  concerning  thy  servants. 


Suffering  and  Song  87 

O  satisfy  us  in  the  morning  with  thy  mercy, 
That  we  may  rejoice  and  be  glad  all  our  days. 
Make  us  glad  according  to  the  days  wherein 

Thou  hast  afflicted  us, 
In  proportion  to  the  years  wherein  we  have  seen 

evil. 
Let  Thy  work  appear  unto  Thy  servants, 
And  Thy  glory  unto  their  children. 
And  let  the  favour  of  Yahweh,  our  God,  be 

upon  us, 
And  upon  the  work  of  our  hands  [Ps.  90: 14-18]. 

In  more  strident  tones  many  psalms  call 

for  judgment  upon  the  wicked  nations. 

For    example,    the    Imprecatory    Psalms 

which  we  have   already  considered  and 

several  like  them  breathe  out  prayers  for 

fire  and  sword  upon  the  wicked  : 

O  my  God,  make  them  like  the  whirUng  dust, 

Like  stubble  before  the  wind. 

As  the  fire  that  burns  the  forest. 

And  as  the  flame  that  sets  the  mountains  ablaze, 

So  pursue  them  with  Thy  tempest, 

And  affright  them  with  Thy  storm. 

Fill  their  faces  with  shame. 

That  they  may  seek  Thy  name,  O  Yahweh. 

Let  them  be  ashamed  and  affrighted  forever; 

Yea,  let  them  be  confounded  and  perish; 

That  they  may  know  that  it  is  only  Thou 

Who  are  most  high  over  all  the  earth 

[Ps.  83:17-19;  cf.  35:19-28]. 


88  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

This  cry  for  vengeance  and  vindication 

often  passes  over  into  jubilation  over  a 

judgment    already    come    to    pass.     For 

instance,  Ps.  96:10-13: 

Say  among  the  nations:  "  Yahweh  reigneth, 
The  world  also  is  established,  it  cannot  be  moved; 
Let  the  heavens  rejoice  and  the  earth  exult; 
Let  the  sea  roar  and  its  fulness; 
Let  the  field  rejoice  and  all  that  is  therein; 
Then  let  all  the  trees  of  the  forest  sing  for  joy 
Before  Yahweh,  for  he  has  come  to  judge  the  earth." 

Such  anticipation  of  a  future  event, 
and  treatment  of  a  hope  as  an  existing 
fact,  is  a  common  feature  of  Hebrev^ 
prophetic  thought,  and  illustrates  how- 
vivid  and  compelling  the  expectations  of 
Judaism  were. 

The  most  definitely  messianic  of  the 
psalms  is  the  second.  Its  importance 
is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  it  has  been 
placed  by  the  editors  of  the  Psalter  at  the 
very  threshold  of  the  community's  hymnal. 
It  is  an  explicit  recognition  and  indorse- 
ment of  the  messianic  hope: 

Yahweh  said  unto  me:  "Thou  art  my  son; 
This  day  have  I  begotten  thee. 


Suffering  and  Song  89 

Ask  of  Me,  and  I  will  give  thee  the  nations  for 

thine  inheritance, 
And  the  ends  of  the  earth  for  thy  possession. 
Thou  shalt  break  them  with  a  rod  of  iron, 
Thou  shalt  dash  them  in  pieces  like  a  potter's 

vessel." 
Now,  therefore,  be  wise,  O  ye  Kings, 
Be  instructed  ye  judges  of  the  earth. 
Serve  Yahweh  in  fear. 
And  rejoice  tremblingly. 

Kiss  the  Son  lest  He  be  angry  and  ye  perish  in 

the  way, 
For  His  wrath  is  quickly  kindled. 

We  shall,  of  course,  recognize  that  the 
messianic  hope  could  not  be  expressed  too 
definitely  and  concretely  in  a  songbook 
intended  for  public  use.  The  necessity 
of  outward  respect  for  the  ruling  power  of 
the  day  would  prevent  too  expHcit  exposi- 
tion of  the  content  and  program  of  the 
great  hope.  The  wonder,  indeed,  is  that 
the  civil  and  military  authorities  per- 
mitted to  go  unchallenged  as  much  as  they 
did  in  the  way  of  threats  of  vengeance 
upon  and  prayers  for  the  destruction  of 
the  oppressors  of  Israel. 

Such  hopes  as  these  evince  the  persist- 
ence   of   an    invincible    and    unshakable 


90  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

faith  among  the  later  Jews.  A  hope 
expressing  itself  in  one  form  was  no  sooner 
dashed  to  the  ground  than  it  sprang  up 
again  in  another  form.  These  poets  and 
dreamers  were  so  sure  of  God  and  of  his 
love  for  Israel  that  they  could  not  lose 
hope.  The  bludgeonings  of  circumstance 
did  but  make  them  cling  more  closely  to 
their  God.  He  could  not  fail  them  nor 
forsake  them.  Had  he  not  rescued  the 
forefathers  time  and  again  when  all  seemed 
lost?  Would  he  not  do  as  much  for  his 
people  today?  Could  he,  indeed,  afford 
to  do  otherwise?  For  the  sake  of  his 
own  name — his  reputation  among  the 
nations — he  must  intervene  and  save  his 
people  from  ruin.  Nothing  apparently 
could  wrench  these  men  of  faith  from 
their  allegiance  to  their  fathers'  God.  It 
is  the  marvel  of  history.  Nothing  Hke  it 
on  a  national  scale  can  be  found  elsewhere. 
It  is  the  revelation  of  a  loyalty  that  pass- 
eth  all  understanding.  The  great  and 
repeated  disasters  that  befel  Judah  were 
treated  by  these  heroes  of  faith  not  as 


Suffering  and  Song  91 

stumbling-blocks  but  as  stepping-stones. 
They  climbed  upward  upon  them  to  a 
profounder  trust  in  God  and  a  truer  under- 
standing of  him.  With  God  all  things 
are  possible: 

God  is  our  refuge  and  strength, 
A  very  present  help  in  trouble. 
Therefore  will  we  not  fear  though  the  earth  do 

move, 
And  though  the  mountains  be  moved  into  the 

heart  of  the  seas. 
Though  the  waters  thereof  roar  and  foam, 
Though  the  mountains  quake  at  the  swelling 

thereof  [Ps.  46:2-4]. 

Along  with  this  national  hope  and  faith, 
and  developing  within  it,  there  grew  up  a 
more  spiritual  type  of  religion.  The  re- 
ligion of  Israel  never  lost  its  patriotic 
quality.  The  religious  hope  of  Judaism 
was  always  and  everywhere,  both  in  and 
out  of  the  Psalter,  largely  concerned  about 
the  glorification  of  Israel  in  the  eyes  of 
the  world.  The  faithful  looked  for  a 
Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  which  should 
bring  all  human  kingdoms  into  subjection 
to  itself.  But  these  hopes  were  always 
deferred,  and  always  renewed  in  brighter 


92  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

and  more  glowing  colors.  Yet  in  spite 
of  this,  and  indeed  by  reason  of  this  long 
continued  disappointment,  the  religious 
life  of  Judaism  became  more  truly  spiritual. 
It  is  notable  that  the  great  ethical  and 
rehgious  contribution  of  the  Semitic  group 
to  the  welfare  of  the  race  was  made  not 
by  the  mighty  and  prosperous  kingdoms 
of  Babylonia,  Assyria,  or  Egypt,  whose 
gods  were  overwhelmed  with  sacrifices  of 
thanksgiving  for  their  abundant  gifts,  but 
by  the  disappointed,  weak,  and  poverty- 
stricken  Hebrew  who  was  stripped  of  all 
that  he  owned  and  became  ultimately  a 
homeless  wanderer  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth.  Deprived  of  material  goods  he 
sought  the  more  earnestly  after  spiritual 
blessings.  Being  forced  to  dispense  with 
the  substantial  goods  that  most  men  treas- 
ured highest,  he  discovered  that  these 
things  could  be  dispensed  with,  and  that 
life  could  go  on  and  become  more  truly 
rich  notwithstanding.  A  successful  and 
prosperous  Israel  would  probably  have 
left  an  impoverished  world;   but  even  as 


Suffering  and  Song  93 

Israel  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  world, 
did  she,  in  turn,  pour  into  the  world's 
treasury  the  rich  products  of  her  increas- 
ingly spiritual  experience.  Faihng  of  outer 
glory,  she  shone  supreme  in  the  glory  of 
the  spirit.  Given  no  recognition  by  man, 
she  sought  and  attained  communion  with 
God.  She  came  to  see  for  herself  and  to  pro- 
claim to  the  world  about  her  that  fellow- 
ship with  God  was  the  highest  good,  that 
having  him  she  could  dispense  with  all  else. 
This  loftiest  height  to  which  the  soul 
of  the  Psalmist  attained  is  by  some  strange 
chance  preserved  for  our  inspiration  in  a 
psalm  that  is  found,  not  in  the  Psalter, 
but  at  the  end  of  the  book  of  Habakkuk. 
It  is  both  by  outer  form  and  by  inner 
spirit  incontestably  proved  to  be  a  psalm 
in  as  full  and  complete  a  sense  as  any 
psalm  within  the  limits  of  the  present 
Psalter.'    This  psalm   is   an   apocalyptic 

^This  Psalm  was  originally  no  part  of  the  message 
of  Habakkuk,  the  prophet,  but  was  placed  with  it  by  some 
later  editor  who  saw  how  splendidly  it  supplemented  the 
teaching  of  the  prophet.  See  the  commentaries  on 
Habakkuk  by  Sir  George  Adam  Smith  and  S.  R.  Driver. 


94  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

picture  of  the  coming  of  Yahweh  to  judge 
the  nations  of  the  earth.  But  it  is  as 
though  the  Psalmist  had  checked  himself 
at  the  close  of  verse  i6  and  recalled 
that  other  men  had  frequently  painted 
such  pictures  and  had  looked  forward 
eagerly  for  their  realization  in  actual 
history,  but  had  met  with  heartbreaking 
disillusionment.  With  this  possibility  in 
mind  for  his  own  case,  he  goes  on  in  the 
following  splendid  strain: 

Though  the  fig-tree  do  not  flourish, 

And  there  be  no  fruit  on  the  vines; 

Though  the  yield  of  the  oHve  fail, 

And  the  fields  produce  no  food; 

Though  the  flock  be  cut  off  from  the  fold. 

And  there  be  no  ox  in  the  stalls; 

Yet  in  Yahweh  I  will  exult, 

I  will  rejoice  in  the  God  of  my  deliverance. 

This  is  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
religion  is  its  own  reward.  It  is  an 
expression  of  the  conviction  that  God  is 
his  own  best  gift.  In  such  words  as  those 
which  occur  and  recur  throughout  the 
Psalter,  there  shines  forth  the  truth  that 
inner  joy  is  independent  of  outer  fortune, 


Suffering  and  Song  95 

that  the  gifts  of  God  are  the  eternal  pos- 
session of  the  soul. 

To  such  heights  of  spiritual  aspiration 
were  the  saints  of  Judaism  spurred  on 
by  the  untoward  circumstances  of  their 
earthly  life.  Such  abiding  satisfaction 
did  they  find  in  meditation  upon  and 
communion  with  God.  Their  thought  of 
God  was  in  many  respects  naive  and 
inadequate  for  our  lives.  But  their  appre- 
ciation of  God  and  their  unswerving 
devotion  to  him  through  thick  and  thin, 
constitute  a  continual  challenge  to  us 
who  have  fallen  upon  better  days  and 
who  have  an  idea  of  God  in  many  respects 
immeasurably  superior  to  theirs.  If  they 
could  sing  such  noble  sentiments  in  the 
midst  of  constant  affliction,  it  ill  becomes 
us  to  be  downcast  when  surrounded 
by  material  wealth  and  power.  Their 
strength  was  in  the  realm  of  the  spirit. 
We,  too,  if  true  to  our  spiritual  inheritance, 
wiU  prize  the  things  that  are  priceless  and 
find  our  abiding  satisfactions  in  those 
things  which  the  world  can  neither  give 
nor  take  away. 


IV 

THE  PSALMS  AND  IMMORTALITY 

We  ask  ourselves  here  what  answer  did 
the  psalmists  give  to  the  eternal  ques- 
tion, ^'If  a  man  die,  does  he  live?" 
What  place  did  the  thought  of  life  after 
death  hold  in  the  minds  of  the  writers  of 
the  Psalms?  To  what  extent  were  their 
buoyant  faith  and  invincible  hope  based 
upon  a  conviction  that  the  wrongs  of  the 
present  life  would  be  righted  in  the  future 
life?  The  Psalter  represents  the  best 
aspiration,  the  purest  idealism  of  the 
saintly  in  Judaism  who  held  to  the  tra- 
ditional interpretations  of  life  and  walked 
in  the  old  paths  without  serious  deviation 
therefrom.  The  attitude  of  such  men 
toward  the  question  of  life  after  death  is 
unquestionably  of  interest  to  students  of 
the  history  of  religion. 

In  order  to  get  ourselves  correctly 
oriented  in  our  approach  to  this  question, 
we  must  take  a  brief  survey  of  the  state  of 

96 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality  97 

thought  in  Israel  upon  this  subject  prior 
to  the  production  of  the  Psalms.  The 
earliest  Hebrew  view  on  record  regarded 
man  as  constituted  of  ''flesh"  and  ''spirit." 
At  death  man  "gave  up  the  ghost,"  i.e., 
the  spirit.  The  spirit  now  persisted  apart 
from  the  body  in  a  bodiless  state.  This 
conception  of  death  is  represented  clearly 
in  two  instances.  Some  length  of  time 
after  Samuel's  death,  the  witch  of  Endor  is 
said  to  have  called  up  the  spirit  of  Samuel 
at  SauFs  behest  (I  Sam.  28:7-20).  When 
Elijah  restored  the  widow's  son  to  life  it 
is  said  that  "the  soul  of  the  child  came 
back  into  him  and  he  revived"  (I  Kings 
17:17-24).  Belief  in  the  possibility  and 
actual  occurrence  of  resurrection  from 
death  is  also  attested  by  the  story  of 
Elisha  raising  the  farmer's  son  after  he 
had  been  dead  for  a  day  or  two  (II  Kings 
4:18-37),  and  by  the  tale  of  the  coming 
to  life  again  of  a  man  whose  body  was 
unceremoniously  dumped  into  Elisha's 
tomb.  Contact  with  the  sacred  bones  of 
the  prophet  overcame  the  effects  of  death 


gS  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

and  the  man  sprang  to  his  feet  (II  Kings 
i3:2of.). 

From  these  and  other  facts  it  is  certain 
that  the  ancient  Hebrews,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  beheved  in  the  persistence  of 
personahty  after  death.  However,  it  is 
equally  clear  that  they  had  not  yet  arrived 
at  any  thought  of  discrimination  between 
the  good  and  the  bad  in  the  hereafter. 
There  were  no  ethical  distinctions  among 
the  shades.  Nor  is  there  any  evidence 
that  there  was  any  thought  of  the  life 
after  death  as  being  desirable  or  worth 
while.  Death  is  never  looked  upon  as  any 
other  than  a  calamity;  it  is  never  viewed 
as  opening  a  door  of  hope.  Furthermore, 
it  is  practically  certain  that  persistence  of 
personality  after  death  had  not  yet  ac- 
quired the  philosophical  dignity  of  being 
regarded  as  eternal  life.  Nobody  had 
yet  reached  so  advanced  a  philosophical 
conception  as  that  of  eternity.  The 
Hebrew  word  {'oldm),  sometimes  trans- 
lated by  "eternity,''  or  in  adverbial 
phrases  "forever,"  is  by  no  means  to  be 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality  99 

given  the  idea  of  endless  duration.     Not 
infrequently  it  is  applied  to  the  lifetime  of 
a  man  (e.g.,  Exod.  21:6;   I  Sam.  1:22)  or 
other  limited  periods.     All  that  persistence 
meant  for  that  period  of  thought  was  that 
as  long  as  there  was  anybody  living  who 
remembered  the  departed  personality  that 
person  was  thought  of  as  still  alive.     On 
the  other  hand  there  was  no  thought  that 
ordinary  men  could  by  any  means  escape 
this  persistence  after  death.     Extraordi- 
nary individuals,  like  Enoch  and  Elijah, 
might  escape  death  itself  by  being  trans- 
ported to  the  heavens;   but  the  common 
man  must  go  the  way  of  all  flesh  and  share 
the  common  lot.     Annihilation  of  person- 
ality never  entered   the  ancient  Hebrew 
mind.     That,  too,  was  too  abstract  and 
philosophical     a     conception     for     early 
Hebrew  thought. 

During  the  period  of  the  great  Hebrew 
prophets,  this  early  attitude  toward  and 
conception  of  Hfe  after  death  continued 
without  essential  change.  This  is  shown 
by  a  few  statements  coming   from  this 


loo         The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

period    with    reference    to    necromancy. 

The  prophets  testify  to  its  existence  by 

their  denunciations  of  it.     For  example, 

Isa.  8:19  f.: 

When  they  say  unto  you  "Seek  unto  the  ghosts 
and  the  familiar  spirits,  that  chirp  and  moan;  should 
not  a  people  seek  unto  its  gods,  on  behalf  of  the 
living  unto  the  dead,  for  instruction  and  testimony  ?  " 
— surely  they  speak  after  this  fashion  in  which  there  is 
no  hght." 

Here  the  popular  recourse  to  spirituaHsm 
is  the  cause  of  the  prophet's  expostula- 
tion. What  he  said  about  it  then  is 
equally  true  of  it  today. 

The  great  prophets  of  IsraeFs  classical 
period  made  no  contribution  to  the  thought 
of  life  after  death.  They  almost  com- 
pletely ignored  the  subject.  The  explana- 
tion of  this  silence  is  not  far  to  seek.  The 
interest  of  these  prophets  was  not  in  the 
welfare  of  the  individual,  but  in  that  of 
the  state.  They  were  ministers  unto  the 
national  life,  their  concern  for  individuals 
was  altogether  a  secondary  matter,  and 
that,  too,  only  in  so  far  as  the  conduct  of 
individuals  was  conceived  of  as  affecting 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality        loi 

the  welfare  of  the  state.  During  the 
prophetic  period  the  existence  of  the  state 
was  constantly  in  jeopardy,  and  the 
whole  energy  of  the  prophets  was  directed 
toward  its  conservation  and  deliverance. 
During  the  recent  world- war  we  saw 
something  of  the  same  sort  taking  place  in 
our  more  influential  pulpits.  We  heard 
more  discussion  of  current  world-issues 
from  the  pulpit  during  that  five  years  than 
most  of  us  had  heard  from  that  source  in 
all  our  previous  experience.  So  the  proph- 
ets had  neither  time  nor  inclination  for 
the  discussion  of  personal  problems,  espe- 
cially such  as  were  not  immediately  press- 
ing. All  their  hopes  were  centered  in  the 
welfare  and  future  of  the  state.  An 
interesting  parallel  is  afforded  by  the 
case  of  Homer,  with  whom  the  thought  of 
the  future  life  of  individuals  drops  out  of 
sight,  necromancy  and  its  associations  are 
ruthlessly  derided,  and  emphasis  is  laid 
upon  the  group  or  national  consciousness. 
In  Israel,  messianism  displaced  immor- 
tahty  and  kept  it  in  the  background. 


I02  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

That  the  behef  in  the  persistence  of  life 
beyond  the  grave  continued  all  through 
the  prophetic  period  in  the  consciousness 
of  the  common  people  is  evident  from 
EzekieFs  vision  of  the  valley  of  dry  bones 
(chap.  37).  It  has  been  customary  to 
say  that  this  is  a  vision  of  the  national 
resurrection  of  Israel  which  is  to  follow 
the  Exile,  and  that  it  says  nothing  as  to 
the  hope  of  the  resurrection  of  individuals. 
This  interpretation,  however,  overlooks 
an  important  fact.  The  purpose  of  the 
narration  of  the  vision  is,  of  course,  to 
rekindle  hope  in  the  bosom  of  an  almost 
despairing  people.  The  prophet  assures 
them  that  the  after  life  of  the  apparently 
dead  nation  will  be  greater  and  grander 
than  any  stage  of  its  history  thus  far  has 
been.  He  predicts  a  resurrection  of  na- 
tional life  and  power.  He  illustrates  this 
by  a  parable  or  allegory  in  the  form  of  a 
vision  of  dry  bones  being  clothed  upon 
with  flesh  and  being  infilled  with  the 
spirit  of  life.  That  is  to  say,  the  prophet 
uses  the  fact  of  the  resurrection  of  indi- 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality         103 

viduals  to  illustrate  his  hope  and  convic- 
tion as  to  the  resurrection  of  the  national 
existence.  No  wise  teacher,  least  of  all 
Ezekiel,  ever  sought  to  make  a  difficult 
truth  or  unfamiliar  idea  clear  by  means 
of  still  more  difficult  or  unfamiliar  illus- 
trative material.  The  true  pedagogical 
method  involves  progress  from  the  known 
to  the  unknown.  It  seeks  to  render  the 
way  to  the  unfamiliar  easy  and  attractive 
by  the  use  of  analogies  dealing  with 
familiar  objects  and  experiences.  The 
prophets,  especially  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel, 
are  particularly  apt  in  their  use  of  such 
methods.  Consequently,  if  Ezekiel  uses 
the  picture  of  a  lot  of  dismembered  skele- 
tons coming  to  life  again  in  response  to  the 
call  of  Yahweh  for  the  purpose  of  making 
his  prediction  of  national  revivification 
seem  more  real  to  his  auditors,  it  may  be 
taken  for  granted  that  a  belief  in  the 
resurrection  of  individuals  was  the  com- 
mon possession  of  Ezekiel's  contempo- 
raries. It  has  been  urged  against  this 
conclusion   with   seeming    force    that   in 


104         The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

verse  3,  where  Yahweh  asks,  "Can  these 
bones  Hve?"  and  the  prophet  answers, 
"O  Yahweh  God,  Thou  knowest,"  the 
answer  indicated  the  prophet's  disbehef 
in  such  a  possibility.  That  is  true,  how- 
ever, only  to  a  certain  degree.  The 
prophet  is  naturally  cautious  and  non- 
committal under  the  circumstances.  He 
knows,  ex  hypothese,  that  he  is  talking 
with  Yahweh  and  that  makes  him  careful 
in  his  reply.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it 
is  to  be  considered  that  the  prophet  is 
confronted  by  an  extraordinary  proposi- 
tion. He  could  easily,  perhaps,  believe 
in  a  far-off  resurrection  of  the  dead,  even 
as  many  people  do  today,  and  believe  in  it 
intensely.  But  to  be  challenged  to  an 
immediate  demonstration  of  its  possibility 
on  a  large  scale  takes  the  wind  out  of  him, 
even  as  it  would  out  of  us  to  be  asked  to 
go  out  to  see  the  sleeping  population  of 
the  neighboring  cemetery  rise  from  their 
tombs.  Such  a  practical  (or  imprac- 
ticable) test  of  our  theory  might  well  give 
us  pause,  though  no  one  would  be  war- 


The  Psalms  and  ImmortaUty         105 

ranted  in  charging  us  therefore  with  dis- 
belief in  the  possibility  of  life  after  death, 
or  even  in  the  ultimate  bodily  resurrection 
of  the  dead. 

We  see  then  that  the  Hebrew  belief 
in  the  persistence  of  personality  did  not 
perish  during  the  prophetic  period.  We 
turn  now  to  a  piece  of  literature  from  the 
period  following  Ezekiel,  viz.,  the  Book  of 
Job.  This  great  book  was  of  contempo- 
rary origin  with  many  of  the  psalms.  It 
will,  therefore,  give  us  insight  into  another 
current  of  thought  running  parallel  to  that 
of  the  psalmists.  We  shall  of  course  keep 
in  mind  the  fact  that  Job  was  the  product 
of  the  school  of  the  sages  in  Judaism,  the 
nearest  approach  that  Judaism  made  to 
the  philosophers  of  Greece.  We  may  then 
not  be  surprised  if  we  are  met  here  by 
a  somewhat  cool  and  dispassionate,  if 
indeed  not  critical,  attitude  toward  the 
state  after  death.  The  prevailing  attitude 
in  Job  may  be  represented  by  two  passages, 
viz.  ,10:1 8-2  2  and  1 4 : 7-2  2 .  In  the  former. 
Job  expostulates  with  Yahweh  as  follows: 


io6  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

Wherefore  then  hast  Thou  brought  me  forth  out 

of  the  womb  ? 
Would  that  I  had  perished  and  no  eye  had  seen  me! 
I  should  have  been  as  though  I  had  not  been; 
I  should  have  been  carried  from  the  womb  to  the 

grave. 
Are  not  my  days  few  ?    Cease  then, 
And  let  me  alone,  that  I  may  take  comfort  a 

Httle, 
Before  I  go  whence  I  shall  not  return. 
Even  to  the  land  of  darkness  and  of  deep  shadow, 
A  land  of  gloom  and  disorder, 
And  the  light  is  like  darkness. 

Manifestly,  the  lot  of  the  soul  after 
death  is  not  an  alluring  one.  In  the  sec- 
ond passage  the  outlook  is,  to  say  the  least, 
no  brighter.  In  verses  7-12  the  poet, 
through  the  contrast  afforded  by  the  power 
of  a  tree  to  spring  up  into  new  life  after 
having  been  once  cut  down,  emphasizes 
the  hopelessness  of  man's  lot: 

But  man  dieth  and  lieth  low; 

Yea,  man  perisheth,  and  where  is  he  ? 

As  the  waters  fail  from  the  sea, 

And  the  river  is  drained  dry, 

So  man  lieth  down  and  riseth  not; 

Till  the  heavens  be  no  more,  they  will 

not  awake, 
Nor  be  roused  out  of  their  sleep. 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality         107 

But  contemplation   of   such  a  fate  is 

appalling  to  the  writer  and  in  revulsion 

from  it  he  longs  for  an  opportunity  to 

meet  his  God  after  death. 

Oh,  that  thou  wouldst  hide  me  in  Sheol, 
That  thou  wouldst  keep  me  secret  until 

thy  wrath  be  past, 
That  thou  wouldst  make  an  appointment 

with  me  and  remember  me. 

But  such  a  hope  is  no  sooner  expressed 
than  its  futility  is  recognized  and  he 
breaks  out,  "If  a  man  die,  is  he  alive  ?" 

To  ask  that  question  is  to  answer  it. 
The  two  terms  death  and  life  are  mutually 
exclusive.  "  If  a  man  is  dead  is  he  living  ?" 
Certainly  not.  But  the  longing  for  a 
chance  after  death  is  overwhelming  and 
the  sufferer  goes  on  to  describe  his  eager- 
ness to  respond  to  the  divine  call  for  a  post 
mortem  appointment.  But  once  more  he 
brushes  aside  such  an  impossibility  and 
resumes  his  melancholy  and  hopeless  strain. 
Even  as  the  forces  of  nature  'rresistibly 
sweep  everything  before  them. 

So  Thou  destroyest  the  hope  of  man, 

Thou  prevailest  forever  against  him  and  he  passes; 


io8  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

Thou  changest  his  countenance  and  sendest  him 

away. 
His  sons  come  to  honour,  but  he  knows  it  not; 
And  they  are  brought  low,  but  he  regards  them 

not. 
But  his  flesh  suffers  for  him, 
And  his  soul  mourns  for  him. 

There  is  but  one  passage  in  the  Book  of 
Job  that  by  any  possibility  can  be  made 
to  reveal  a  hope  of  a  worth-while  existence 
after  death,  and  that  is  the  famous  and 
familiar  crux  inter  prelum  (19:25  f.).  The 
text  and  meaning  there,  however,  are  so 
doubtful  and  ambiguous  that  it  is  useless 
to  base  any  judgment  upon  these  verses. 
On  the  whole  it  may  be  said  that  the 
attitude  of  Job  elsewhere  toward  the 
question  of  life  after  death  renders  it 
very  unlikely  that  he  finally  formulated  a 
clear  and  definite  hope  and  expressed  it  in 
only  one  passage.  If  he  had  come  to  such 
a  brilliant  and  revolutionary  change  in  his 
thinking  he  surely  would  have  heralded  it 
in  unmistakable  terms,  especially  as  it 
would  have  had  such  a  vital  effect  upon 
his  interpretation  of  his  own  suffering. 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality        109 

But  see  S.  R.  Driver  and  G.  B.  Gray,  The 
Book  of  Job  (International  Critical  Com- 
mentary [1921]),  on  Job  19:25  f.,  where 
the  position  is  taken  that  Job  here  thinks 
of  himself  as  restored  to  consciousness 
for  a  little  while  after  his  death  that  he 
may  with  his  own  eyes  see  God  vindicating 
his  character  before  the  world. 

The  view  clearly  present  in  Job  that 
there  is  nothing  to  be  hoped  for  in  the  after 
world  is,  of  course,  the  old  opinion  still 
persisting,  though  somewhat  more  philo- 
sophically developed.  This  same  old  view 
finds  clear  expression  also  in  the  Psalter. 
Death  and  Sheol  are  things  to  be  dreaded 
(Pss.  69 : 1 6 ;  30 : 4) .  In  death  none  think  of 
God  or  praise  him  (Pss.  6 : 5 ;  30:9;  115:17; 
118:17;  119:175).  God,  in  turn,  in  like 
manner  takes  no  thought  of  the  dead 
(Ps.  88:5-7,  10,  12  f.).  Premature  death 
is  the  punishment  of  the  wicked  (Pss.  9:18; 
31:18;  37:22,  28-35,  38).  "Thou,  O 
God,  wilt  bring  them  down  into  Sheol. 
Men  of  blood  shall  not  live  out  half  their 
days"  (Ps.  55:24).    On  the  other  hand 


no  The  Religion  oj  the  Psalms 

length  of  days  is  the  reward  of  the  righteous 
(Pss.  23:6;  91:16;  97:10;  103:5;  116:3, 
15;  118:17).  But  finally  all  go  down  to 
Sheol.  Death  is  no  respecter  of  persons 
(Ps.  49:6-13). 

O  remember  how  short  my  time  is; 

For  what  vanity  hast  Thou  created  all  the  sons 

of  men! 
What  man  is  there  that  shall  not  see  death  ? 
That  shall  deliver  himself  from  the  power  of 

the  grave  ?    [Ps.  89 :  47  f .] 

In  general  the  view  of  the  Psalter  is  that 
all,  good  and  bad  alike,  go  dov^n  to  Sheol; 
that  there  is  no  moral  discrimination  in 
the  life  there;  and  that  that  life  is  hardly 
worthy  of  the  name — it  is  a  bare  and  futile 
existence  robbed  of  all  that  makes  life 
worth  living.  While  this  is  true  for  the 
Psalter  as  a  whole,  it  does  not  necessarily 
hold  good  of  all  the  Psalms.  For  the 
Psalter  is  from  many  minds  and  may 
therefore  reflect  differing  opinions  upon 
such  a  subject  as  this.  We  now  turn, 
therefore,  to  some  passages  that  call  for 
special  attention. 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality         iii 

First  of  all,  we  may  dismiss  with  brief 

notice  a  passage  that  is  misrepresented  by 

the  Authorized  Version,  viz. : 

Thou  wilt  not  leave  my  soul  in  hell; 
Neither  wilt  Thou  suffer  Thine  Holy  One  to  see 
corruption  [Ps.  i6:io]. 

It  is  sufi&cient   to    observe    that  in  the 

immediate  context,  both  before  and  after, 

the  psalmist  is  rejoicing  in  the  thought  of 

the    divine    protection    that    gives    him 

security  so  that  he  is  made  to  ''know  the 

path  of  life,"  i.e.,  is  saved  from  death. 

Then  when  we  scrutinize  the  language  of 

verse  lo,  we  discover  that  a  more  accurate 

translation  fits  the  context  perfectly,  viz. : 

Thou  wilt  not  abandon  me  to  Sheol; 

Nor  wilt  thou  suffer  Thy  holy  one  to  see  the  pit. 

The  picture  is  that  of  Sheol  reaching  up 
its  greedy  claws  like  a  ravenous  monster 
clamoring  for  the  speaker's  life.  But 
Yahweh  intervenes  and  delivers  his  saint 
from  premature  death.  Similar  repre- 
sentations appear  in  Pss.  30:3;  89:48; 
86:13;  9:13;  33-19;  56:13-  Life  and 
death  are  under  the  control  of  God;   the 


112  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

wicked  are  sent  down  to  Sheol  in  hot 
haste,  but  of  the  pious  the  good  God  says : 

With  long  life  will  I  satisfy  him, 

And  show  him  My  deliverance  [Ps.  91 :  i6]. 

An  exact  parallel  to  our  passage  is  fur- 
nished by  Ps.  30:4: 

O  Yahweh,  Thou  broughtest  me  up  from  Sheol; 
Thou  didst  keep  me  aHve  that  I  should  not  go 
down  to  the  pit. 

This  is  no  rescue  occurring  after  death; 
it  is  rather  an  intervention  just  in  time 
to  save  from  death,  "Thou  didst  keep  me 
alive." 

The  next  passage  is  not  so  easily  under- 
stood, viz.,  Ps.  17:13-15: 

Arise  O  Yahweh,  confront  him,  cast  him  down; 
Deliver  me  from  the  wicked,  by  Thy  sword; 
From  men,  by  Thy  hand,  O  Yahweh; 
From  men  of  the  world — ^may  they  have  their 

portion  in  life; 
May  their  body  be  filled  with  Thy  stores; 
May  their  children  be  sated. 
And  may  they  leave  the  rest  to  their  babes. 
But  I — ^I  shall  see  Thy  face  in  righteousness, 
When  Thou  awakest  I  shall  be  satisfied  with  Thy 

appearance. 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality        113 

The  text  of  this  passage,  especially  in 
verse  14,  is  very  uncertain  and  we  have  to 
translate  at  a  venture.  At  any  rate,  it  is 
clear  that  the  speaker  is  calling  for  Yahweh 
to  protect  him  against  the  ungodly.  If 
this  rendering  of  verse  14  be  in  the  right 
direction,  the  language  here  is  slightly 
ironical.  The  "  stores ''  of  Yahweh  are  the 
punishments  he  has  on  hand  for  the  wicked. 
In  keeping  with  the  general  spirit  of  such 
Imprecatory  Psalms,  the  poet  calls  for  the 
infliction  of  the  wrathful  punishments  of 
Yahweh  upon  the  children  of  the  wicked 
even  to  the  third  generation.  But  turn- 
ing from  the  fate  of  the  sinner,  the  psalmist 
briefly  expresses  his  assurance  of  his  own 
triumphant  vindication.  "  Righteousness  " 
here  is  used  in  the  same  sense  as  in 
Isaiah,  chapters  40-55,  where  it  almost 
uniformly  means  "  vindication. '^  Yahweh 
is  thought  of  as  exercising  his  righteous 
power  and  so  bringing  vindication  to 
Himself  and  His  people  in  the  sight  of 
the  world.  Our  poet  confidently  looks 
for  this  when  Yahweh  awakes  from  his 


114         ^^  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

period  of  inactivity  and  apparent  slumber. 

This  representation  is  in  keeping  with  his 

summons  to  Yahweh  to  arise  in  verse  13. 

The  psalmists  do  not  shrink  from  speaking 

of  Yahweh  as  indulging  in  a  nap.    Cf .  44 :  24, 

Awake,  why  sleepest  Thou,  O  Yahweh  ? 
Arouse  Thyself,  cast  not  off  for  ever. 

Similar  language  appears  in  Pss.  35:23 
and  59:6.  There  remain  the  vivid  phrases 
"see  Thy  face"  and  ''satisfied  with  Thy 
form  (or  appearance)."  These  are  poetic 
and  figurative  expressions  and  do  not 
contemplate  an  actual  seeing  of  the  divine 
countenance  or  person.  This  appears  at 
once  when  we  compare  with  our  passage 
such  passages  as  22:25: 

For  He  has  not  despised  nor  abhorred  the  lowli- 
ness of  the  poor; 
Neither  has  He  hid  His  face  from  them; 
But  when  they  cried  unto  Him  He  heard. 

And  Ps.  44:26: 

Wherefore  hidest  Thou  Thy  face, 

And  forgettest  our  affliction  and  our  oppression  ? 

Cf.  also  for  similar  phraseology  Pss.  10: 11 ; 
11:7.     In  similar  fashion  the  law  requires 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality        115 

every  male  in  Israel  to  go  up  to  the  sanctu- 
ary three  times  in  the  year  "to  see  the 
face  of  Yahweh"  (Exod.  23:17).  Indeed, 
this  same  mode  of  expression  appears  in 
Babylonian  religious  literature,  where  one 
writer  says  to  the  goddess  Ishtar,  "I 
beheld  thy  face."  On  seeing  the  face  of 
Ishtar,  cf.  Zimmern,  Hymnen  und  Gebete, 
I,  10,  where  Ishtar  is  besought  thus: 
"with  thy  shining  face  look  at  men 
faithfully,  at  me!"  It  has  been  suggested 
that  the  phraseology  "see  the  face  of 
Yahweh"  was  due  to  influence  of  Baby- 
lonia where  worship  of  the  planets  gave 
rise  to  such  terms.  But  the  phrase  is  far 
older  in  Israel  than  the  period  of  Baby- 
lonian influence,  e.g.,  Exod.  23 :  17.  What 
is  meant  by  such  expressions  is,  of  course, 
the  gracious  manifestation  of  Yahweh's 
power  in  behalf  of  the  speaker.  While  the 
wicked  are  to  suffer  the  penalty  of  their 
sins  at  the  wrathful  hand  of  Yahweh,  the 
pious  and  saintly  are  to  see  His  face 
shining  graciously  upon  them  in  the  out- 
flowing of  blessings.     The  word  "  likeness  " 


ii6  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

or  "form"  adds  nothing  to  what  is  impHed 
by  "face."  The  "face"  is  indeed  a  part 
of  the  "form"  and  both  words  are  ahke 
used  in  a  figurative  sense  of  the  divine 
intervention  in  defense  and  vindication 
of  the  oppressed  saint.  Indeed  in  Deut. 
4:12,  15,  it  is  distinctly  impressed  upon  the 
Israehtes  that  they  saw  not  Yahweh's 
"form"  on  Sinai;  and  while  in  Numbers, 
chap.  i2,Yahweh  says  that  Moses  talks  with 
Him  face  to  face  and  sees  His  "form";  yet 
in  that  extraordinary  passage  Exod.  33 :  17- 
23,  Moses  is  warned  that  he  may  not  see 
the  face  of  Yahweh  and  live.  There,  of 
course,  the  word  is  used  in  its  literal  sense. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  no  thinker 
in  postexilic  Israel  ever  dreamt  of  actually 
seeing  the  person  of  Yahweh  in  this  life, 
at  least,  and  our  poet  is  evidently  looking 
for  his  vindication  here  on  earth.  It  is 
perfectly  certain  that  the  thought  of  the 
entire  Psalm  up  to  verse  13  is  concerned 
with  vindication  at  the  hands  of  Yahweh 
in  the  world  that  now  is,  and  it  is  not  likely 
that  there  is  any  change  in  the  scope  of 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality         117 

the  thought  in  the  last  stanza.  Even 
if  we  accept  the  translation  of  the  verb 
"awake"  which  makes  it  apply  to  the 
speaker  rather  than  to  Yahweh,  it  still 
remains  true  that  the  awaking  is  not  that 
following  death.  It,  is  rather  from  the 
present  period  of  weakness  and  suffering 
which  seems  to  the  sufferer  like  an  evil 
dream.  Such  sleep  and  awakening  are 
spoken  of  elsewhere  in  the  Psalter,  espe- 
cially in  30 : 5 ;  76:6  and  143:7,  8.  Avery 
interesting  parallel  to  our  passage  is 
afforded  by  Ps.  73 :  20:  "As  a  dream  when 
one  awakes,  O  Lord,  so  when  Thou  awak- 
est,  Thou  wilt  despise  their  likeness."  One 
of  the  clearest  expositions  of  the  point  of 
view  of  our  poet  in  Psalm  17  is  afforded 
in  Ps.  39:5-14.  There  the  brevity  of 
human  life  is  emphasized  and  in  general 
its  futihty.  Man's  only  hope  is  in  God 
and  that  hope  is  interpreted  as  vindication 
in  the  sight  of  the  world.  If  a  man  does  not 
obtain  this,  what  has  he  that  is  worth  while  ? 

Hear  my  prayer,  O  Yahweh,  and  give  ear  unto 

my  cry; 
Keep  not  silence  at  my  tears; 


ii8  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

For  I  am  a  stranger  with  Thee, 

A  sojourner,  as  all  my  fathers  were, 

Look  away  from  me,  that  I  may  take  comfort, 

Before  I  go  hence  and  be  no  more. 

We  turn  from  such  depressing  views 
to  seek  a  more  cheerful  outlook.  Two 
more  passages  invite  consideration.  The 
first  of  these  is  Ps.  49:5-20.  The  text 
here  unfortunately  is  not  always  intelligible 
having  suffered  many  things  apparently  at 
the  hands  of  transcribers.  But  with  the 
adoption  of  some  "corrections"  we  may 
attempt  a  translation: 

Why  should  I  fear  when  trouble  comes, 
When  the  malice  of  my  persecutors  surrounds  me, 
They  who  trust  in  their  substance, 
And  boast  of  the  bulk  of  their  riches  ? 
But  no  man  can  buy  himself  off, 
Nor  give  to  God  a  ransom  for  himself; 
For  the  redemption  of  his  life  is  too  costly. 
And  he  comes  to  an  end  for  ever  and  aye. 
And  would  he  live  forever  and  not  see  the  pit, 
Surely  he  sees  that  wise  men  die; 
Yea,  fool  and  dolt  perish; 
And  they  leave  their  substance  to  others. 
Their  grave  is  their  house  forever. 
Their  habitation  for  generation  after  generation; 
Though  they  have  called  lands  by  their  own 
names. 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality        119 

Man  abideth  not  in  riches; 

He  is  like  the  beasts  that  perish. 

This  is  the  way  of  those  who  are  self-confident; 
And  the  path  of  those  who  delight  in  their  own 

speech; 
They  are  appointed  like  a  flock  to  Sheol, 
Death  shepherds  them, 

(The  upright  shall  rule  over  them  in  the  morning) 
And  their  form  must  dissolve  away. 
Sheol  is  their  dwelling. 
But  God  will  rescue  me; 

From  the  power  of  Sheol  He  will  surely  take  me. 
Fear  not  when  a  man  becomes  rich, 
When  the  splendor  of  his  house  increases; 
For  when  he  dies  he  can  take  nothing, 
His  splendor  does  not  go  down  after  him. 
Though  while  aUve  he  congratulate  himself, 
(Men  praise  thee  when  thou  doest  well) 
He  will  go  to  the  generation  of  his  fathers 
Where  they  nevermore  see  light. 
Man  abideth  not  in  riches. 
He  is  like  the  beasts  that  perish. 

The  thought  here  is  very  clear.  Why 
worry  over  the  prosperity  and  power  of 
the  wicked?  Do  they  not  share  in  the 
common  lot  of  death  ?  And  of  what  sig- 
nificance is  a  brief  period  of  good  fortune 
against    the    background    of    the    great 


120         The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

human  tragedy?  Not  only  so,  but  the 
wicked  are  snatched  away  prematurely 
by  Sheol;  they  do  not  live  out  half  their 
days.  But  God  saves  his  saints  from 
such  a  dire  fate.  They  come  to  their 
grave  in  a  good  old  age,  "As  a  shock  of 
corn  Cometh  in  in  its  season."  It  is  the 
divine  care  of  the  good  in  this  life  that 
concerns  the  poet.  He  has  no  vision  nor 
hope  of  life  after  death.  This  statement 
holds  good  even  if  we  follow  the  common 
rendering  of  verse  15,  which  runs.  "God 
will  redeem  my  soul  from  the  power  of 
Sheol;  He  will  take  me."  This  leaves 
the  method  and  goal  of  the  taking  indefi- 
nite; but  it  remains  true  that  Sheol  is  here 
thought  of  as  balked  of  its  prey,  just  as  in 
Psalm  16,  the  speaker  is  convinced  that 
he  will  escape  Sheol.  How  he  does  not 
venture  to  predict.  The  closest  parallel 
to  the  phraseology  is  in  the  story  of 
Enoch  (Gen.  5:24).  "Enoch  was  not,  for 
God  took  him";  and  the  one  passage  is 
just  as  indefinite  and  vague  as  the  other. 
But    the    rendering    of    Ps.    49*  15    here 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality        121 

adopted  frees  us  from  such  vagueness 
and  at  the  same  time  restores  the  balance 
of  the  verse,  while  calling  for  no  change 
except  the  transfer  of  a  punctuation  point. 
There  remains  but  one  more  passage 
that  calls  for  treatment,  to- wit,  Ps.  73:22- 
26.  The  writer  has  been  setting  forth 
his  former  state  of  mind  as  he  gazed  upon 
the  blatant  prosperity  of  the  wicked. 
He  envied  them  and  resented  keenly  his 
own  lot  in  comparison  with  theirs.  But 
he  then  came  to  realize  that  his  state  of 
mind  was  unworthy  of  a  child  of  God, 
for  the  wicked  stand  in  slippery  places 
and  are  suddenly  hurled  to  utter  ruin. 
In  the  light  of  this  fact,  he  chides  himself, 
saying: 

But  I  was  brutish  and  knew  nothing; 
A  very  beast  was  I  in  thy  presence. 
For  I  am  continually  with  Thee, 
Thou  boldest  my  right  hand. 
Thou  guidest  me  by  Thy  counsel. 

These  lines  beautifully  express  the  sense 
of  fellowship  with  God.  They  breathe 
forth  the  spirit  of  trust  and  dependence 


122  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

that  characterize  the  attitude  of  a  little 
child  toward  its  father.  This  intimate 
feeling  of  inner  communion  between  man 
and  God  is  the  glory  of  the  Psalter.  It 
is  that  which  has  made  it  supreme  in 
the  devotional  literature  of  humanity. 
This  is  the  heart  and  soul  of  true  religion. 
There  follows,  however,  immediately 
upon  these  splendidly  spiritual  words,  a 
phrase  which  is  an  integral  part  of  them 
and  must  complete  their  thought  and 
bring  it  to  a  climax.  Unfortunately  we 
cannot  be  sure  of  the  meaning  of  this 
phrase  and  still  more  we  are  in  doubt  as 
to  the  soundness  of  the  text.  Passing 
over  the  latter  problem  and  taking  the 
text  as  it  stands,  the  best  treatment  of  the 
grammar  yields  the  following  rendering: 
''And  afterward  Thou  wilt  take  me 
gloriously. *'  This  is,  of  course,  open  to 
the  charge  of  vagueness.  All  that  we  can 
say,  supposing  the  translation  and  text  to 
be  correct,  is  that  the  poet  looks  forward 
to  a  glorious  vindication  at  the  hands  of 
God,  and  that,  probably,  this  vindication 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality         123 

is  conceived  of  as  awaiting  him  in  a  here- 
after. This  conclusion  is  somewhat  ven- 
turesome in  view  of  the  fact  that  this  is 
the  only  passage  in  the  Psalter  in  which 
the  hope  of  a  life  beyond  the  grave  is 
brought  forward.  This  is  strange,  for  if 
the  hope  were  present  at  all,  we  should 
expect  it  to  occupy  a  relatively  large 
place.  It  would  be  wholly  out  of  the 
question  if  the  Psalter  were  the  work  of  but 
one  or  two  men.  No  man  who  believed  in 
a  worthful  existence  after  death  could 
discuss  the  problem  of  suffering  from  as 
many  angles  as  appear  in  the  Psalter 
and  fail  to  make  use  of  his  hope  for  the 
future  as  a  solvent.  But  the  Psalter  is 
the  product  of  many  minds  and  it  is,  of 
course,  possible  that  the  writer  of  Psalm 
73  is  not  represented  by  many  songs  in  our 
collection,  and  that  he  alone  of  all  the 
psalmists  entertained  some  vague  hope 
of  a  glorious  life  to  come. 

However  that  may  be,  the  fact  remains 
that  there  is  practically  no  thought  of  life 
after  death  in  the  Psalter  as  a  whole.    If 


124  ^^^  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

we  were  to  let  the  balance  of  probability  go 
and  were  to  read  life  after  death  into  every 
passage  in  the  Psalter  which  would  admit 
of  it,  it  would  still  be  true  that  the  allusions 
to  life  after  death  would  be  amazingly 
few.  But  in  this  respect  the  Psalms  do 
not  differ  essentially  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  a  whole.  The  Jews  were  appar- 
ently incapable  of  imagining  life  as  being 
carried  on  anywhere  except  on  earth. 
Consequently,  when  they  do  think  of  life 
after  death,  it  is  in  terms  of  a  resurrected 
life,  the  dead  coming  back  again  to  life 
in  the  world.  This  was  the  characteristic 
Jewish  thing.  Immortality  was  the  prod- 
uct of  Greek  thought,  and  came  to  find 
adoption  in  later  Jewish  and  Christian 
thought.  But  even  this  resurrection  life 
plays  but  a  small  part  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. There  are  but  two  passages  in 
which  it  clearly  appears,  viz.,  Isa.  26:19 
and  Dan.  12:23. 

The  reason  for  this  is  twofold.  First 
and  most  important  is  the  fact  that  the 
thought  of  existence  after  death  lay  out- 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality         125 

side  of  the  religion  of  Yahweh  in  early 
times.  It  was  a  part  of  primitive  Semitic 
religion.  When  Yahwism  came  to  Israel, 
it  found  this  instinctive  repulsion  to  anni- 
hilation already  on  the  ground.  All  that 
the  earlier  exponents  of  the  religion  of 
Yahweh  sought  to  do  with  it  was  to  keep 
the  people  from  abusing  the  belief  in 
existence  after  death  by  necromantic 
practices.  It  was  not  till  relatively  late 
in  Hebrew  thought-history  that  the  realm 
of  existence  after  death  was  taken  over 
and  incorporated  within  the  limits  of  the 
religion  of  Yahweh  itself.  It  was  one  of 
the  last  primitive  pagan  elements  to  be 
incorporated  and  purified. 

In  the  second  place,  life  after  death  did 
not  bulk  large  in  the  Hebrew  Psalter 
because  the  life  that  now  is  was  so  inter- 
esting, so  enthralling.  And  particularly 
so,  when  we  recall  that  the  psalmists  were, 
like  the  prophets,  primarily  concerned 
with  the  life  of  the  community  and  not 
with  that  of  the  individual.  Now  the 
community    is    self -perpetuating;     it    is 


126  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

immortal.  Generation  succeeds  genera- 
tion world  without  end.  The  problem  of 
existence  did  not  present  itself  so  vividly 
in  the  case  of  the  group  as  such.  And  this 
group-life  was  a  matter  of  large  moment  to 
the  Psalmists.  It  absorbed  their  energies 
and  embodied  their  hopes.  If  the  Jewish 
people  and  the  Jewish  religion  go  on  and 
prosper  the  Psalmist  is  willing  to  disappear 
from  view.  His  highest  hopes  and  aspira- 
tions are  fulfilled.  The  individual  feels 
himself  absorbed  in  the  group  and  finds 
his  larger  satisfaction  in  sharing  the  group 
consciousness. 

The  noteworthy  thing  about  the  absence 
of  emphasis  upon  the  future  life  in  the 
Psalter  is  the  fact  that  the  lack  of  a  vigor- 
ous and  vital  hope  of  a  life  after  death 
did  not  paralyze  the  ethical  or  religious 
interest  in  Israel.  To  use  a  hackneyed 
phrase,  it  did  not  ^^cut  the  nerve''  of 
religion.  The  reason  for  this  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  Hebrew  insisted  that  religion 
should  pay  its  way  as  it  went.  He  placed 
no  reliance  upon  deferred  dividends.     He 


The  Psalms  and  Immortality        127 

felt  that  the  values  of  religion  were  to  be 
realized  by  the  individual  in  the  present 
world.     But  more  than  this,  he  went  on 
to  define  those  values  in  spiritual  terms. 
While  the  best  men  in  Israel  never  got 
wholly  away  from  a  somewhat  materialis- 
tic valuation  of  religious  good,  yet  they 
did  more  and  more  emphasize  the  distinc- 
tively spiritual  and    ethical  meaning  of 
hfe.     Communion  with   God  is  the  out- 
standing   note    of    the    religion    of    the 
psahnists.     With    God    at   his   side,    the 
Hebrew  was  able  to    face  all  his  foes, 
material  and  spiritual,   and    to  triumph 
in  the  realm  of  the  spirit  even  when  routed 
on  the  field  of  battle.     In  no  book  of  pious 
meditation   and    lofty   aspiration   is   the 
sense  of  the  actual  presence  of  God  in 
human  experience   more  vividly  present 
than  in  the  Book  of  Psalms.     These  poets 
walked  and  talked  with  God.     They  found 
him  a  source  of  refuge  when  beaten  back 
by  the  advance  of  sorrow  and  disaster; 
they  sought  new  strength  from  him  when 
exhausted  by  the  strain  of  watching  and 


128  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

waiting  for  the  fulfilment  of  deferred  hopes; 
they  shared  with  him  their  joy  when 
fortune  turned  and  light  broke  in  upon 
their  darkness.  Fellowship  with  God  is 
for  the  Hebrew  the  supreme  good. 

As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water  courses, 
So  panteth  my  soul  after  Thee,  O  God, 
My  soul  thirsteth  for  God,  for  the  living  God; 
How  long  till  I  come  and  see  the  face  of  God  ? 

[Ps.  42 :  23]. 

Yahweh  is  my  light  and  my  salvation; 

Whom  shall  I  fear  ? 
Yahweh  is  the  strength  of  my  life; 

Of  whom  shall  I  be  afraid  ? 

[Ps.  27:1]. 


V 

THE  IDEA  OF  GOD  IN  THE 
PSALMS 

Let  us  remind  ourselves  again  that  the 
Psalter  was  the  hymn  book  of  the  Jewish 
people  as  a  whole.     Consequently  we  shall 
not  expect  to  find  therein  the  thought  of 
experts   on   any   subject.     The   ideas   of 
God  that  it  contains  will  be,  for  the  most 
part  certainly,  those  held  by  the  plain 
man.     We  shall  see  what  aspects  of  the 
conception  of  God  really  functioned  in  the 
hfe  of  the  man  on  the  street.     We  ought 
not  to  expect  to  find  the  most  exalted  and 
abstract  or  philosophical  conceptions  of 
God  in  the  Jewish  hymnal  any  more  than 
we  do  in  our  own.     Some  such  ideas  do 
occasionally  crop  out,  but  they  are  not 
the  ideas  that  bulk  large  in  the  thought 
and  speech  of  the  psalmists. 

The  wonder,  indeed,  is  that  the  thought 
of  God  in  the  Psalter  is  as  noble  and  lofty 
as  it  is.    This  wonder  grows  upon  us  as 

129 


130  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

we  learn  more  accurately  and  definitely 
just  how  the  average  Jew  thought  about 
God  in  the  early  postexilic  age.  The 
Jewish  religious  thought  of  that  age,  or 
more  particularly  of  the  fifth  century  B.C., 
is  vividly  presented  to  us  in  the  papyri 
discovered  in  1906-7  at  Elephantine  on 
the  Nile,  and  commonly  known  as  the 
Assouan  papyri  after  the  name  of  the  town 
lying  on  the  river  bank  just  across  from  the 
island  of  Elephantine.  These  papyri  con- 
tain private  and  public  documents  belong- 
ing to  a  colony  of  Jews  located  at  this 
point  and  serving  as  mercenaries  in  the 
Persian  army.  These  documents  are  of 
various  sorts,  some  being  records  of  real 
estate  transactions  and  other  business 
deals,  others  having  to  do  with  religious 
and  social  matters.  They  illustrate  the 
religion  of  the  colony  in  a  very  informing 
way.  These  Jews  had  a  temple  and  priest- 
hood of  their  own  devoted  to  the  worship 
of  Yahweh  and  they  spared  no  zeal  or  cost 
in  the  equipment  and  upkeep  of  this 
sanctuary    with    its    staff.     All    this    is 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      131 

natural  and  as  it  should  be.  But  upon 
going  through  the  papyri,  we  find  that 
other  gods  than  Yahweh  were  likewise 
recognized  and  held  in  high  honor.  Not 
only  so,  but  Yahweh  himself  actually 
shares  his  gifts  with  two  subordinate  gods, 
the  one  composite  deity  bearing  the 
name  Anath-Bethel,  and  the  other  Asham- 
Bethel.  Indeed,  in  one  case,  Yahweh  is 
himself  given  a  female  consort,  who  is 
known  by  the  composite  name  Anath- 
Yahweh.  This  at  once  reminds  us  of 
such  composite  deities  as  Ashtar-Chemosh 
of  Moab  and  Atargatis  of  Phoenicia. 
Yahweh's  very  temple  and  ritual  seem  to 
have  made  room  for  some  of  these  god- 
desses. When  to  these  facts  is  added  the 
further  item  that  the  personal  names  of 
the  members  of  the  Jewish  colony  contain 
the  names  of  nearly  a  dozen  different  gods 
and  goddesses  as  component  elements,  it  is 
at  once  clear  that  the  religion'  of  these 

^  For  a  more  complete  statement  of  the  religion  of  the 
Assouan  colony,  see  my  article  "Jewish  Religion  in  the 
Fifth  Century  B.C./'  American  Journal  oj  Semitic  Lan- 
guages, July,  1917,  pp.  322  ff. 


132  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

fifth-century  Jews  was  practically  a  form 
of  polytheism  in  which  Yahweh  was 
assigned  the  place  of  ch}ef  God.  All  the 
more  wonderful  is  it  then  that  from  the 
Jewish  Psalter  practically  every  trace  of 
polytheistic  thought  has  disappeared,  and 
that  the  thought  of  God  is  so  presented 
in  the  Psalms  as  that  for  the  most  part  it 
has  ministered  effectively  and  inspiringly 
to  the  religious  need  of  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  worlds  alike  all  through  the 
succeeding  centuries. 

As  indicative  of  the  great  advance 
beyond  a  crass  polytheism  that  some  of  the 
psalms  reflect,  we  may  bring  together  those 
passages  from  the  Psalter  that  represent 
Yahweh  as  the  God  of  the  Universe,  the 
only  God.  This  view  of  God  appears 
in  the  ascription  of  omnipotence  to  Yah- 
weh. He  is  the  Creator  and  Controller  of 
the  Universe: 

The  heavens  are  telling  the  glory  of  God, 

And  the  expanse  publishes  the  work  of  his  hands. 

Day  unto  day  pours  forth  speech, 

And  night  unto  night  declares  knowledge. 

There  is  no  speech;  nor  are  there  words; 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      133 

Their  voice  is  not  heard. 

Yet  their  voice  has  gone  forth  in  all  the  earth, 

Their  words  to  the  end  of  the  world. 

[Ps.  19:1-4]. 

Thoughts  like  these  meet  us  frequently 
in  the  Psalter.'  Yahweh  is  the  Lord  of  the 
thunder.^  He  is  the  God  of  history,  ruling 
and  overruling  the  thoughts  and  intents  of 
men  from  the  beginning.^  He  is  the 
source  and  the  continual  sustainer  of  all 
life.4  He  is  the  mighty,  yea,  the  omnipo- 
tent God.s  But  this  unlimited  power 
is  coupled  with  commensurate  wisdom. 
Yahweh  is  omniscient;  he  is  a  discerner 
of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  men;  while 
his  own  ways  are  past  finding  out.^  He 
is  the  inescapable,  omnipresent  God.'' 

»Pss.  8:4;  24:2;  3,y.(>Q.\  74:13-17;  78:69;  89:10- 
14;  90:21;  95Hf-;  96:5;  109:3;  102:26;  107:23  fif.; 
115:15;  146:6;  147:8,  9,  16-18;  148:5-13;  121:2; 
124:8;  134:3- 

*Ps.  29:3  ff. 

3PSS.  22:29;     24:1;     78;   136;     105:12-44. 
4Ps.  104:  10-30. 

sPss.  135:6;  93:4;  77:17-20;  78:12-16. 

6  PSS.  94:8-11;     145:3;     147:5;     139:1-6. 

'Ps.  139:75. 


134  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

Possessing  these  characteristics,  it  is 
quite  in  keeping  that  Yahweh  should 
also  be  thought  of  as  the  timeless,  the  age- 
long, eternal  God.' 

O  Lord,  thou  hast  been  our  dwelling-place  through 

all  generations; 
Before  the  mountains  were  brought  forth, 
Or  ever  the  earth  and  the  world  were  formed, 
Even  from  age  to  age  thou  art  God. 
Thou  retumest  man  to  dust, 
And  thou  sayest,  "Return,  O  sons  of  men. 
For  a  thousand  years  in  thine  eyes 
Are  but  as  yesterday  when  it  is  past. 
And  as  a  watch  in  the  night"     [Ps.  90: 1-4]. 

A  God  like  that  is  incomparable;  he  is 
unique;^  he  is,  of  course,  the  only  God.^ 
Idols  therefore  are  futile;  they  are  worse 
than  useless;  they  represent  non-existent 
beings.  It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  com- 
pare or  contrast  Yahweh  with  them: 

All  the  gods  of  the  nations  are  nonentities, 
But  Yahweh  made  the  heavens  [Ps.  96 : 5]. 

Our  God  is  in  the  heavens. 

He  has  done  whatsoever  he  pleased. 

Their  images  are  sUver  and  gold — ■ 

*  Pss.  102:25-28;  105:8;  145:13;  146:10. 
'Pss.  40:6;  113:5;  77:14;  86:8;  89:7,9. 
3Ps.  18:33. 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      135 

The  work  of  men's  hands. 

Mouths  have  they,  but  they  speak  not. 

Eyes  have  they,  but  they  see  not. 

Ears  have  they,  but  they  hear  not. 

Noses  have  they,  but  they  smell  not. 

Hands  have  they,  but  they  touch  not. 

Feet  have  they,  but  they  walk  not. 

Like  unto  them  shall  be  those  who  make  them, 

Whosoever  trusteth  in  them  [Ps.  115:3-8].^ 

One  psalm  seems  on  the  face  of  it  to 

recognize  the  gods  and  therefore  calls  for 

examination : 

God  stands  in  the  divine  assembly, 

In  the  midst  of  the  gods  he  judges: 

"How  long  will  you  judge  perversely. 

And  show  favor  toward  the  wicked  ? 

Execute  justice  for  the  poor  and  the  fatherless; 

Give  the  afflicted  and  destitute  their  rights; 

Deliver  the  poor  and  the  needy; 

From  the  power  of  the  wicked  rescue  them." 

They  know  not,  nor  do  they  understand. 

They  walk  in  darkness. 

All  the  foundations  of  the  earth  totter. 

I  said,  "You  are  gods, 

And  all  of  you  sons  of  the  Most  High; 

Yet  like  men  you  shall  die, 

And  like  one  of  the  princes  you  shall  fall." 

Arise,  O  God,  judge  the  earth, 

For  thou  shalt  take  possession  of  all  the  nations. 

[Ps.  82:1-8] 
»Seealso96:4;  97:7;  135:5,15-18. 


136  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

It  is  at  once  evident  that  God  is  here, 
represented  as  calling  to  account  those 
who  have  been  responsible  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice  upon  the  earth.  In 
dramatic  fashion  he  calls  them  together 
and  denounces  them,  threatening  them 
with  death.  Who  are  these  judges  ?  They 
are  described  as  "gods"  and  as  "sons  of 
Ely  on"  which  means  the  same  thing. 
Yet  "gods"  do  not  "die."  Indeed  as 
verse  7  says,  their  death  will  show  them  to 
be  mere  mortals.  The  probable  meaning 
of  all  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
rulers  of  the  ancient  world,  who  had 
exercised  sway  over  Israel,  were  frequently 
acclaimed  as  divine  and  given  the  title 
and  worship  belonging  to  gods.  The 
psalmist  then  is  speaking  ironically  when 
he  talks  of  "gods,"  but  with  bitter  serious- 
ness when  he  reminds  these  vain  rulers 
that  they  must  share  the  common  lot  of 
man  and  die. 

The  idols  being  ruled  out  of  the  uni- 
verse as  nonentities,  their  place  is  given 
to  a  body  of  angels  who  serve  as  the  mes- 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      137 

sengers  and  agents  of  God  in  his  dealings 
with  men.  These  angels  are  not  promi- 
nent in  the  Psalms,  being  mentioned  but 
four  times.  In  103 :  20  f.  they  are  spoken 
of  as  Yahweh's  messengers,  ministers  and 
doers  of  his  will,  and  they  are  thought  of 
as  very  numerous,  being  addressed  as 
"all  his  hosts.''  In  91:11  f.  the  pious 
are  assured  of  Yahweh's  providential 
care  as  mediated  through  his  angels : 

For  he  will  give  his  angels  charge  concerning  thee, 
That  they  shall  keep  thee  in  all  thy  ways; 
Upon  their  hands  they  shall  bear  thee  up, 
Lest  thou  dash  thy  foot  against  a  stone. 

The  same  care  of  the  pious  is  exercised 
by  the  "angel  of  Yahweh"  in  Ps.  34:8. 
But  the  converse  of  that  appears  in 
Ps.  35:5,  6,  where  the  "angel  of  Yahweh" 
is  assigned  the  task  of  hurrying  headlong 
the  wicked  who  are  flying  "like  chaff 
before  the  wind"  and  of  pursuing  hard 
after  them  as  they  stumble  in  "dark 
and  slippery"  ways. 

Yahweh,  who  is  exalted  to  the  throne 
of  the  universe  by  the  psalmists,  is  of 
course  thereby  made  ruler  over  all  the 


138  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

nations.  He  is  the  judge  of  all  the  earth.' 
But  in  this  capacity  his  main  concern 
seems  to  be  the  punishment  of  the  peoples 
of  the  earth.  There  is  no  thought  any- 
where in  the  Psalms  of  the  love  and  tender- 
ness of  Yahweh  toward  mankind  at  large, 
such  as  we  find  in  the  Book  of  Jonah,  for 
example,  and  in  some  parts  of  Isa.  40-66. 
The  Psalter  is  a  nationalistic  hymnal  and 
its  God  is  thoroughly  loyal.  For  though 
Yahweh  is  the  only  God,  he  is  nevertheless 
primarily  thought  of  as  Israel's  God,  and 
his  interests  are  naturally  and  inevitably 
the  interests  of  Israel.  He  is  spoken  of 
as  the  "Shepherd  of  Israel,''^  the  "God 
of  Jacob, "^  while  Israel  in  turn  is  his  son."* 
He  "loves  the  gates  of  Zion''^  and  makes 
Mount  Zion  his  dweUing-place.^  He  is 
true  to  his  own  people,  keeping  all  his 
promises  with  them,  and  he  is  their  sure 
refuge  from  all  their  foes.^    But  his  inter- 

»Pss.  7:9;  9*Sj9i2o;  96:10-13;  110:6. 

»Ps.  80:2.  '♦Ps.  27. 

sPs.  94:7.  sPs.  87:2.  ''Ps.  74:2. 

7Pss.  3:4  ff-;  4:9;  5:12,  13;  6:10;  18:31;  31:24; 

37:40;  94:14,22;  iii:s;  106:45;  121:4. 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      139 

est  in  Israel  does  not  prevent  him  from 
inflicting  severest  punishment  upon  her 
for  her  sins;  he  may  even  forsake  and  cast 
off  Israel  forever.'  His  wrath,  however, 
is  reserved  mainly  for  his  enemies,  viz., 
Israel's  foes,  whom  he  laughs  to  scorn^ 
and  utterly  destroys. 

It  is  not  among  such  transcendental 
aspects  of  the  divine  nature  as  omnipo- 
tence, omniscience,  omnipresence,  univer- 
sahty,  and  uniqueness  that  the  psalmists 
love  to  Hnger.  They  are  much  more 
apt  to  present  Yahweh  to  us  as  a  very 
human  sort  of  God.  He  is  intensely 
personal  in  all  Hebrew  literature  and 
nowhere  more  so  than  in  the  Psalter.  He 
is  here  presented  to  us  as  a  great,  indeed 
an  incomparably  great,  man.  He  is 
credited  with  all  the  attributes  of  man. 
The  psalmists  carry  their  personification 
of  God  so  far  as  not  to  shrink  from  assign- 
ing even  human  limitations  to  him.  Of 
course,  personality  itself  is  a  limitation, 

»Pss.  74:1;  90:75.;   108:12;   106:40;   102:11. 
«Pss.  143:11;  2:4;  5:11;  73-27;  94:23;  97:35- 


I40  The  Religion  of  tJie  Psalms 

but  they  go  far  beyond  that.  He  shares 
some  of  the  frailties  of  human  personahty, 
and  is  presented  in  a  thoroughly  anthropo- 
morphic way.  He  has  a  face,  with  eyes, 
ears,  nose,  and  mouth. ^  He  has  arms, 
hands,  and  feet.^  He  breathes,  swallows, 
and  talks.3  He  grows  weary  and  may  take 
a  nap.'*  He  becomes  angry  and  executes 
vengeance  upon  the  wicked  ;5  but  his 
anger  may  quickly  come  and  as  quickly 
go.^  On  one  occasion,  indeed,  Moses 
actually  turned  back  Yahweh's  wrath.'' 
Appeals  are  constantly  made  to  his  pride; 
he  must  intervene  in  his  people's  behalf 
for  the  sake  of  his  own  name,  i.e.,  his 
reputation  among  men.^    He  needs  and  is 

»Pss.  80:4;  33:6,  18;  11:7;  34:i6f.;  17:5;  27:8; 
30:8;  31:3;  14:3;  1:17;  32:8;  18:9,16;  102:3;  105:4; 
143:7;  116:2;  119:125. 

'Pss.  32:4;  18:36;  20:7;  21:9;  80:18;  98:1;  138:7; 
118:15, 16. 

3Pss.  18:16;  33:6;  21:10;  102:3. 

4PSS.  73:20;    78:65;    7:7;    35:23;    95:10- 

sPss.  18:48;  99:8;  137:75.;  2:5,12;  90:72.;  94:1  f. 
*Ps.  30:6. 
'Ps.  106:23. 

8Pss.  102:16;  143:11;  106:8;  109:21,  27;  115:2; 
74:18,  22  f.;  79:9-13. 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      141 

provided  with  a  home;  sometimes  his 
dwelKng-place  is  in  the  heavens  and  again 
it  is  on  earth,  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem.' 
He  is  credited  with  a  great  love  of  praise. 
This  characteristic  appears  in  the  name 
of  the  Psalter  which  is  "Praises."  It  is 
shown  by  the  great  amount  of  praise  that 
is  expressed  in  the  Psalms.  The  last 
five  psalms,  each  beginning  with  "Halle- 
lujah," i.e.,  "praise  ye  Yahweh,"  are 
nothing  but  ascriptions  of  praise  from 
first  to  last.  This  weakness  is  made  use 
of  in  a  fine  argumentative  way  by  some  of 
the  psalmists.  Yahweh  is  not  thought  of 
as  being  above  considerations  that  affect 
his  own  advantage;  he  is  a  God  that 
may  be  reasoned  with.  Loving  approba- 
tion as  he  does,  he  naturally  will  not  wish 
to  act  in  any  way  so  as  to  diminish  the 
volume  of  his  praise.^ 

Mine  eye  languishes  by  reason  of  affliction; 
I  have  called  upon  thee,  O  Yahweh,  every  day, 

»Pss.io2:2of.;99:i;9i:9;  123:1;  115:3,16;  135:21. 

'Pss.  115:17  f.;   89:39-52;  40:10-12;   6:5,6;    10:1- 
13;   30:9,  10;   35'27f-;    74:10!.;   83:19. 


142  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

I  have  spread  forth  my  hands  unto  thee. 
Wilt  thou  work  wonders  for  the  dead  ? 
Or  will  the  shades  arise  and  give  thee  thanks  ? 
Will  thy  mercy  be  declared  in  the  grave  ? 
Or  thy  faithfulness  in  Abaddon  ? 
Will  thy  wonders  be  known  in  the  dark  ? 
And  thy  righteousness  in  the  land  of  forgetfulness  ? 

[Ps.  88:ioff.]. 

Yahweh  is  so  human  as  that  he  must 

bind  himself  by  an  oath  that  he  will  not 

forget  nor  fail  to  keep  his  promises.^    He 

may  change  his  mind  and  fail  to  carry  out 

an  original  intention,  which  procedure  is 

known  as  "repenting  himself."^    He  may 

even  meet  like  with  like  and  outdo  the 

cunning  man  with  his  own  subtlety: 

With  the  pure  thou  showest  thyself  pure; 
But  with  the  crooked,  thou  dost  deal  tortuously. 

[Ps.  18:27]. 

We  recognize  at  once  that  in  such 
representations  as  the  foregoing,  the  psalm- 
ists are  but  attributing  to  Yahweh  the 
feelings  and  attitudes  that  are  character- 
istic of  men.  This  is  what  mankind  has 
done  always  and  everywhere.     We  cannot 

»Pss.  132;  95:11;  132:11;  105:9,10;  106:26;  110:4. 
»Pss.  135:14;  90:13. 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      143 

think  of  anything  or  anybody  in  terms 
outside  of  our  own  human  experience. 
We  naturally  consider  ourselves  as  belong- 
ing to  the  highest  order  of  life,  at  least  on 
our  own  planet.  Therefore  in  conceiving 
of  God  we  as  a  matter  of  course  describe 
him  in  terms  of  our  own  human  experience. 
If  we  were  animals  and  were  able  to  con- 
ceive of  a  god,  we  should  describe  him  in 
terms  of  animal  life;  if  we  were  angels,  in 
terms  of  angelic  or  divine  life.  Conse- 
quently when  the  psalmists  speak  of  the 
noble  and  divine  aspects  of  Yahweh,  they 
naturally  do  so  in  terms  of  those  qualities 
which  they  regard  as  ideal  in  human  beings. 
If  Yahweh  must  be  thought  of  in  human 
terms,  it  is  natural  that  he  should  be  repre- 
sented under  the  guise  of  those  types  of 
men  most  highly  honored  by  their  fellows. 
One  favorite  way  of  picturing  him  is  as  a 
great  king.'  With  this  function,  he  natu- 
rally appears  also  as  a  judge,^  and  that  of 

iPss.  74:12;  22:29;  24:1;  84:4;  93:1;  95:3;  96:10; 
97:1;  98:6;  99:1;  103:19,22;  123:1;  145:1-13;  146:10. 

»Pss.  7:9;  9:5,9,20;  75:8;  82:1,8;  94:2;  96:10,13; 
98:9;  110:6. 


144  2^^  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

all  the  earth.  In  a  world  that  was  full  of 
wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  it  would  be 
strange  if  Yahweh  were  not  thought  of  at 
times  in  terms  of  military  efficiency.' 
The  surprising  fact  is  that  there  is  so 
little  of  this  sort  of  thing.  Yahweh  is  a 
mighty  warrior,  a  strength  and  shield,  the 
destroyer  of  his  foes,  a  mighty  God,  a  rock 
of  defense,  a  high  tower,  a  fortress,  a 
deliverer,  a  terrible  and  awful  Being,  and 
the  leader  of  innumerable  hosts.  In  these 
and  related  aspects  of  his  character, 
Yahweh  is  indeed  a  fearful  and  awe- 
inspiring  God: 

My  flesh  shuddereth  for  fear  of  thee; 
And  I  am  afraid  of  thy  judgments 

[Ps.  119:120]. 

Thou — terrible  art  thou; 

And  who  can  stand  before  thee  ? 

From  the  heavens  thou  didst  announce  judgment; 

Earth  feared  and  was  quiet, 

When  God  arose  to  judgment, 

To  deUver  all  the  meek  of  the  earth. 

»Pss.  18:47;    19:15;    24:8-10;   31:4;    28:7;   33:20; 
76:8-13;   77:17-20;   78:12-16;   88:1,  is;   84:12;  91:2; 

94:22,  23;   95:1;   96:9;    97:3  ff-;    99:3;    115:9-11; 

118:8,  9;  114:7;  111:9. 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      145 

Surely  the  wrath  of  man  shall  praise  thee; 
The  residue  of  wrath  thou  shalt  gird  upon  thee. 
Vow  and  pay  unto  Yahweh  your  God. 
Let  all  who  surround  him  bring  gifts  to  the 

terrible  one. 
He  restrains  the  spirit  of  princes; 
Terrible  is  he  to  the  kings  of  the  earth 

[Ps.  76:8-13]. 

Closely  allied  to  these  terrifying  and 
awe-inspiring  characteristics  of  Yahweh 
is  his  holiness.  Very  little  is  said  of  this 
quality  in  the  Psalter.'  That  is  because 
holiness  is  a  metaphysical  concept  per- 
taining to  the  essence  of  the  divine  being. 
It  is  not  a  moral  quality;  least  of  all  is  it  a 
human  quality.  Thus  it  does  not  play  a 
conspicuous  role  in  the  psalmists'  thought. 
Holiness  is  that  which  constitutes  God- 
head— it  is  the  very  essence  of  deity. 
It  is  that  which  distinguishes  God  from 
man.  Just  as  humanity  is  the  essence 
of  the  human,  so  holiness  is  the  essence  of 
the  Divine.  It  lies  beyond  the  range  of 
human  experience  as  the  exclusive  char- 

»Pss.  22:4;  97:12;  98:1;  99:31  S»  9;   103:1;   108:8; 

111:9. 


146  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

acteristic  of  another  order  of  beings;  it 
may,  therefore,  be  predicated  of  Yahweh, 
but  Httle  attempt  is  made  to  expound  the 
content  of  the  term  or  define  its  limits. 
In  this  connection  we  may  note  also  the 
thought  of  Yahweh  as  able  to  discern  the 
thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart  in  a  way 
far  transcending  all  human  possibility.^ 
He  likewise  surpasses  even  the  greatest  of 
kings  in  that  all  his  plans  carry  through; 
they  do  not  fall  short  of  completion.^ 

It  is  in  more  familiar  terms,  however, 
that  the  psalmists  prefer  to  speak  of  Yah- 
weh. Just  those  qualities  that  good  men 
covet  for  themselves  are  most  frequently 
predicated  of  Yahweh.  He  is  a  good  and 
upright  God,  who  loves  righteousness  and 
demands  justice  and  himself  exercises 
the  function  of  a  just  judge  over  all  the 
earth.3  By  virtue  of  this  characteristic, 
he  may  be  depended  upon  to  reward  the 

'Pss.  7:10;  139:1-6. 

»PS.  33:10,  II. 

3Pss.  11:7;  7:9;  9:5,  9,  20;  25:8;  85:15;  86:5; 
92:16;  98:9;   103:6,17;   111:7,8;   112:4;   116:5. 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      147 

pious  and  faithful  Jews.^  One  of  the 
things  without  which  access  to  his  presence 
is  impossible  to  any  man  is  the  require- 
ment of  a  righteous  life.^  Yet  his  con- 
ceptions of  righteousness  and  justice  are 
so  far  superior  to  those  of  man  that  none 
can  pass  examination  at  his  bar  unscathed : 

O  Yahweh,  hear  my  prayer;  give  ear  to  my 

supplications; 
In  thy  faithfulness  answer  me,  and  in  thy 

righteousness. 
But  enter  not  into  judgment  with  thy  servant, 
For  before  thee  can  no  man  living  be  justified. 

[Ps.  143:1,2]. 

On  the  one  hand  this  righteousness  of 
God's  gives  Israel  confidence.  For  if 
Yahweh  is  just  and  righteous  he  must  and 
will  vindicate  the  righteous  on  earth  and 
not  permit  the  wicked  to  triumph  over 
them  forever.  His  own  reputation  is  at 
stake.  Therefore  the  psalmists  look  for- 
ward to  a  day  when  Yahweh's  vindication 
of  justice  will  be  displayed  to  Israel's 
advantage  and  his  own  glory  in  the  utter 
downfall   of  all  oppressors.     In  view  of 

'Pss. 40:5;  73:1;  i;  4:4;  31:20;  37:4,22. 

»Ps.  15:1,  2. 


148  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

some  such  manifestation  of  the  divine 
justice  as  this  or  in  vivid  anticipation  of  it, 
one  psalmist  triumphantly  celebrates  the 
event  thus: 

O  sing  unto  Yahweh  a  new  song, 

For  he  has  done  marvelous  things; 

His  right  hand  and  his  holy  arm  have  wrought 
deliverance  for  him. 

Yahweh  has  made  known  his  deliverance; 

His  righteousness  has  he  revealed  in  the  sight  of 
the  nations. 

He  has  remembered  his  mercy  and  his  faithful- 
ness toward  the  house  of  Israel; 

All  the  ends  of  the  earth  have  seen  the  deliver- 
ance of  our  God  [Ps.  98 : 1-3]. 

On  the  other  hand  the  righteousness  of 
God  might  well  plunge  Israel  in  despair. 
For  if  none  can  satisfy  the  demands  of 
the  divine  justice,  what  chance  is  there  for 
Israel  ?  But  it  is  just  here,  at  the  crucial 
point,  that  the  large-hearted  humanity  of 
Yahweh  saves  the  day.  He  is  not  only  a 
just  judge,  he  is  much  more — a  tender, 
merciful,  and  forgiving  God.' 

»Pss.  78:38  f.;  85:3;  86:s,  15;  89:1,  is;  90:17; 
98:3;  99:8;  ioo:s\  103:3,  4,  II,  13,  14,  17;  106:1; 
107:1,8,15,21,31,43;  108:5;  109:21,26;  111:4;  112:4; 
115:1;  117:2;  116:5;  118:1-4,29;  119:68,77,124,156; 
130:4,7;  136;   138:2,8;   145:9;   146:7-9- 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      149 

Yahweh  is  full  of  compassion  and  gracious, 

Slow  to  anger,  and  plenteous  in  mercy. 

He  will  not  always  chide, 

Nor  will  he  keep  his  anger  for  ever. 

He  has  not  dealt  with  us  after  our  sins, 

Nor  requited  us  according  to  our  iniquities. 

For  as  the  heaven  is  high  above  the  earth, 

So  great  is  his  mercy  toward  them  that  fear  him. 

As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west, 

So  far  has  he  removed  our  transgressions  from  us. 

Like  as  a  father  has  compassion  upon  his  children 

So  has  Yahweh  compassion  upon  those  who  fear 

him. 
For  he  knows  our  frame; 
He  remembers  that  we  are  dust  [Ps.  103 : 6-14].^ 

It  is  this  beneficent  side  of  the  divine 
character  that  the  psalmists  constantly 
bring  to  mind.  They  are  the  songsters  of 
a  needy  people.  God  must  be  to  them  a 
comfort,  a  helper  in  time  of  trouble,  a 
strength  and  stay.  So  he  appears  as 
the  deliverer  of  the  poor  and  needy;*  a 
shepherd  caring  solicitously  for  all  the 
needs  of  his  flock  ;3  the  embodiment  of 
loving  kindness  and  f aithf ulness  ;4  tenderly 

»Cf.  145:8,  17;  147:11. 

»Pss.  9:13;  10:7!.;  14:6;  22:25;  94:17-19. 

3  Ps.  23. 

"Pss.  36:6,  8,  11;  92:3;  100:5;  119:88,90,138. 


150  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

thoughtful  of  the  sick  and  suffering 
saint,  heaHng  all  his  diseases;^  a  covert 
from  the  storm  and  a  cooling  shade  in 
the  sweltering  heatf  a  bountiful  dis- 
penser of  good  things  ;3  and  the  pre- 
server of  the  lives  of  his  saints/  It  is 
this  way  of  thinking  about  God  that 
makes  possible  the  beautiful  and  pathetic 
appeal  with  which  Psalm  22  opens: 

My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me  ? 

Why  are  the  words  of  my  cry  far  from  my  deHverer  ? 

My  God,  I  cry  by  day;  but  Thou  answerest  not; 

And  by  night,  and  I  am  not  silent. 

Yet  Thou  art  holy, 

O  Thou  that  dwellest  in  the  praises  of  Israel; 

In  Thee  our  fathers  trusted; 

They  trusted  and  Thou  didst  rescue  them. 

Unto  Thee  they  cried  and  were  delivered; 

In  Thee  they  trusted  and  were  not  ashamed. 

But  I  am  a  worm,  and  not  a  man, 
A  reproach  of  men,  and  despised  of  people; 
All  that  see  me  laugh  me  to  scorn. 
They  open  wide  their  mouths  at  me;  they  wag 
their  heads, 

^Pss.  41:4;  103:3. 
»Ps.  91:1-4. 
3Ps.  116:12. 
^Ps.  97:10. 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms       151 

(Saying)  "Let  him  commit  himself  unto  Yahweh, 

that  He  may  deUver  him; 
Let  Him  rescue  him,  inasmuch  as  He  dehghts  in 

him." 

But  it  was  Thou  that  didst  bring  me  forth  from 

the  womb, 
That  didst  make  me  to  trust  while  I  was  at  my 

mother's  breast. 
Upon  Thee  was  I  cast  from  birth ; 
From  my  mother's  womb  Thou  has  been  my  God. 
Do  not  be  far  from  me  when  trouble  is  nigh. 
When  there  is  none  to  help  [Ps.  22 :  i-ii]. 

This  sense  of  intimate  fellowship  and 

communion  with  God  inspires  certain  parts 

of  Psalm  73 : 

But  I  am  continually  with  Thee; 

Thou  boldest  my  right  hand; 

Thou  guidest  me  by  Thy  counsel; 

And  afterward  Thou  wilt  take  me  gloriously. 

Whom  have  1  in  the  heavens  ? 

And  in  none  but  Thee  have  I  pleasure  on  earth. 

My  flesh  and  my  heart  fail. 

The  rock  of  my  heart  and  my  portion  forever  is 

God. 
For,  behold,  those  who  are  far  from  Thee  shall 

perish. 
Thou  destroyest  every  one  that  is  disloyal  to  Thee. 
But  I — the  nearness  of  God  is  my  good; 
I  have  put  my  confidence  in  the  Lord  Yahweh, 
That  I  may  tell  of  all  Thy  works  [Ps.  73 :  23-28]. 


152  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  the 
psalmists  than  their  longing  for  and 
appreciation  of  fellowship  with  God.  This 
is  for  them  the  highest  good.  This  con- 
viction finds  expression  in  various  ways : 

I  have  no  good  beyond  Thee  [Ps.  16: 2]. 

In  Thy  presence  is  fullness  of  joy  [Ps.  16:11]. 

I  shall  be  satisfied  with  Thy  form  [Ps.  17: 15]. 

I  delight  to  do  Thy  will, 

Thy  law  is  within  my  heart  [Ps.  40:8]. 

As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water  brooks 

So  panteth  my  soul  after  Thee,  0  God  [Ps.  42 :  i]. 

He  that  dwelleth  in  the  secrecy  of  the  Almighty 

[Ps.  91 :  i]. 

The  nearness  of  God  is  my  good  [Ps.  73 :  28]. 

The  beautiful  imagery  of  the  Shepherd 
Psalm  (23)  reflects  clearly  the  poet's 
sense  of  fellowship  with  the  Divine,  and, 
the  strongest  influence  in  the  direction  of 
a  belief  in  a  worthful  future  life  was  the 
force  of  the  longing  for  a  continuation  in 
a  life  beyond  the  grave  of  that  blessed 
fellowship  with  God  already  experienced 
in  the  life  on  earth. 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      153 

If  fellowship  with  God  was  the  summum 

bonum  of  man,  it  follows  as  a  matter  of 

course  that  estrangement  from  God  was 

the  worst  of  all  calamities: 

I  am  become  like  the  slain  that  lie  in  the  grave 

Whom  Thou  rememberest  no  more, 

And  they  are  cut  off  from  Thy  hand  [Ps.  88 : 6  S.], 

This  is  the  tragedy  of  death,  that  it  cuts 
off  the  normal  fellowship  of  the  saint  with 
God.  But  that  fellowship  is  by  no  means 
guaranteed  to  any  man  even  as  long  as  he 
lives;  it  is  his  privilege  only  so  long  as  he 
complies  with  the  conditions  that  make  it 
possible.  Sin  of  all  sorts  brings  its  punish- 
ment in  many  ways,  not  the  least  serious 
of  which  is  the  loss  of  divine  fellowship. 
Hence  there  arise  those  psalms  that  express 
a  deep  longing  for  forgiveness  and  a  sincere 
repentance  and  confession  of  wrong: 

Remember  not  the  sins  of  my  youth,  nor  my 

transgressions; 
According  to  Thy  mercy  remember  Thou  me, 
For  Thy  goodness'  sake,  O  Yahweh, 
For  Thy  name's  sake,  O  Yahweh, 
Pardon  mine  iniquity,  for  it  is  great  [Ps.  25:7,  11].^ 

I  Similarly  Pss.  25:18;  32:5;  51:  iff. 


154  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

This  forgiveness  of  sins  is  a  blessed  thing: 

Happy  is  he  whose  transgression  is  forgiven, 

whose  sin  is  pardoned. 
Happy  is  the  man  to  whom  Yahweh  does  not 

charge  iniquity, 
In  whose  spirit  is  no  guile  [Ps.  32:1,  2]. 

The  penitent  soul  is  accepted  of  Yahweh 
and  is  admitted  to  his  inmost  favor: 

Yahweh  is  nigh  to  them  that  are  of  a  broken  heart, 
And  such  as  are  of  a  contrite  spirit  [Ps.  34:19]. 

The  sense  of  sin  in  the  Psalter  is  not 
overwhelming.  The  soul  is  not  crushed 
by  its  weight.  The  element  of  confession 
and  repentance  is  not  conspicuously  pres- 
ent. There  is  nothing  abnormal  or  in 
any  sense  unnatural  about  the  psalmists' 
attitude  toward  God.  They  lament  and 
complain  fluently  of  the  hard  lot  of  their 
people  and  themselves,  but  they  do  not 
undertake  to  hold  themselves  wholly 
responsible  for  all  that  has  befallen  them. 
Their  misfortunes  are  due  not  so  much 
to  their  own  faults  as  to  the  malevolence 
of  their  foes.  However,  they  recognize 
clearly  that  Israel  cannot  expect  to  enjoy 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms      155 

the  favor  of  God  except  as  her  people 
conform  to  his  demands  and  these  demands 
are  primarily  in  the  sphere  of  ethics. 

This  attitude  of  intimate  fellowship  with 
a  divine  person  has  been  a  permanent  con- 
tribution of  Hebrew  religion  to  Christi- 
anity, and  the  popular  use  of  the  Psalms 
in  Christian  worship  has  done  much  to 
make  this  conception  of  God  permeate 
the  church.  The  God  of  the  Psalter  is  in 
a  very  real  sense  akin  to  us;  he  is  touched 
with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities  and  in 
many,  if  not  in  all,  points  tempted  like 
as  we  are.  The  psalmists  were  not  prais- 
ing and  praying  to  an  abstract,  philo- 
sophical principle.  They  were  not  feeling 
after  a  metaphysical  notion  or  a  mystical 
something.  Their  God  was  force,  wisdom, 
and  the  like;  but  he  was  much  more. 
He  represented  these  abstract  principles 
all  embodied  in  a  person  and  fused  together 
in  a  wonderful  personality.  This  is  another 
way  of  saying  that  the  God-idea  of  the 
Psalms  was  not  the  product  of  philosophy 
or  of  science,  but  of  religion.     The  thought 


156  The-  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

of  God  was  not  the  product  of  the  study  or 
the  laboratory,  but  sprang  warm  and  glow- 
ing from  the  hearts  of  practical  men  wrest- 
ling heroically  with  the  problems  of 
everyday  life.  Yahweh  was  not  the  God 
of  an  esoteric  group;  he  was  the  God  of 
the  man  on  the  street.  This  common 
man  made  his  idea  of  God  in  response  to 
the  needs  of  his  own  soul.  That  accounts 
in  part  for  the  popularity  of  the  Psalter 
and  for  the  profound  impression  it  has 
made  upon  human  experience.  It  has 
helped  us  to  believe  in  a  good  and  gracious 
God,  whose  heart  is  concerned  for  the 
achievement  and  conservation  of  the 
same  great  ethical  and  spiritual  values  that 
are  dear  to  the  hearts  of  men.  It  has 
helped  us  to  keep  alive  in  our  souls  the 
sense  of  our  divine  kinship.  It  has 
brought  the  God  of  the  Universe  down  into 
the  simple  homes  and  loyal  hearts  of  the 
plain  people. 

From  so  genuinely  human  and  inti- 
mately personal  an  idea  of  God  it  was  but 
a  short  step  to  the  acceptance  of  Jesus 


The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Psalms       157 

as  the  actual  Son  of  God.  It  is  this 
same  sense  of  an  intensely  personal  quality 
in  the  Godhead  that  Browning's  Saul  so 
vividly  expresses: 

O  Saul,  it  shall  be 
A  Face  like  my  Face  that  receives  thee;  a  Man 

like  to  me 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by,  forever;    a 

hand  like  this  hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee: 
See  the  Christ  stand! 


APPENDIX 

BOOKS  FOR  THE  GENERAL  READER 

A.  R.  Gordon,  The  Poets  of  the  Old  Testament.    New 

York:  Hodder  &  S  tough  ton,  1912. 
J.  E.  McFadyen,  The  Psalms  in  Modern  Speech  and 

Rhythmical  Form.     Boston:    The  Pilgrim  Press, 

1916. 
T.  K.  Cheyne,  The  Origin  and  Contents  of  the  Psalter. 

(The  Bampton  Lectures  for  1889.)    New  York: 

Whittaker,  1892. 
S.  R.  Driver,  The  Parallel  Psalter  (containing  the 

Prayer  Book  Version  and  a  new  rendering  by  the 

author).    Oxford:   Clarendon  Press,  1898. 
G.  B.  Gray,  Forms  of  Hebrew  Poetry.    New  York: 

Hodder  &  Stoughton,  191 5. 
J.  E.  McFadyen,   The  Messages  of  the  Psalmists. 

New  York:  Scribner's,  1904. 
W.  T.  Davison,   The  Praises  of  Israel.    London: 

C.  H.  KeUey,  1898. 
W.  G.  Jordan,  Religion  in  Song,  or  Studies  in  the 

Psalter.    London:  James  Clarke  &  Co.,  1920. 
J.  Wellhausen  and  H.  H.  Furness,   The  Book  of 

Psalms,  A  New  English  Translation.    New  York: 

Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.,  1898. 
W.  T.  Davison  and  T.  W.  Davies,  The  Psalms. 

(New    Century    Bible.)     New    York:     Henry 

Frowde,  1906. 
G.  B.  Gray,  A  Critical  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, pp.  128-41.    New  York:  Scribner's,  1913. 

158 


The  Religion  of  the  Psalms         159 

W.  Robertson  Smith,  art.  "Psalms,"  Encyclopaedia 

Biblica,  Vol.  III.     New  York:   Macmillan,  1902. 
W.  T.  Davison,  art.  "Psalms,"  Hastings'  Dictionary 

of  the  Bible,  Vol.  IV.     New  York:    Scribner's, 

1902. 
F.  C.  EiSELEN,  The  Psalms  and  Other  Sacred  Writings. 

Their  Origin,  Contents^  and  Significance.    New 

York:  Methodist  Book  Concern,  191 8. 
John  P.  Peters,   The  Psalms  as  Liturgies:    Being 

the    Paddock  Lectures  for   1920.    New  York: 

Macmillan,  1922. 


INDEXES 


SUBJECT  INDEX 


Acrostic  psalms,  i8  f. 

Alexander  the  Great,  68 

Alphabetic  structure,  i8  f. 

Angels,  136  f. 

Annihilation,  99,  125 

Anthropomorphism,  140 

Antiochus  Epiphanes,  68 

Arrangement  of  psalms, 
10  f. 

Artaxerxes  Ochus,  68 

Assouan  papyri,  130  f. 

Babylonian  religion,  115 
Bathsheba,  43  f. 
Book  of  Job,  63  f .,  71, 105-9 
Browning's  Saul,  157 

Canon  of  Old  Testament, 

37 
Chronicles,  Books  of,  38 
Communion  with  God,  95, 

122,  127  f. 

Community,    hymnal    of, 

21  £f. 
Community,  life  of,  1 25  f . 

David,  33-61 ;  census  taken 
by,  51  f.;  poetic  ability 
of,  39  ff.;  polygamy  of, 
47  f.;  religion  of,  41  ff.; 
theology  of,  49  f. 

Davidic  psalms,  60  f. 

Discouragement,  75 


Editors  of  Psalter,  7  ff. 
Elephantine,  130 
Emperor- worship,  136 
Estrangement    from    God, 

153 
Eternity,  98  f. 
Ezekiel,  103 

Face  of  Yahweh,  114  f. 

Faith  90-93 

Fellowship  with  God,  152- 

57 
Forgiveness,  154 

God :  communion  with, 
95,  122,  T27  f.;  estrange- 
ment from,  153;  eternity 
of,  134;  goodness  of, 
149  f.;  holiness  of,  145  f.; 
in  the  Psalter,  129-57; 
justice  of,  147;  love  of, 
138;  omnipotence  of, 
132  f.;     omniscience    of, 

133 
Green,      William     Henry, 
views  of,  34  f . 

Habakkuk,  71,  93  f. 
Haggai,  67 

History  of  Psalter,  12 
Hymnbook,  i  ff.,  26  ff.,  64, 

73,86,  129 
Hymnology,  modem,  3  ff. 


163 


164  The  Religion  oj  the  Psalms 


"I"  in  the  Psalter,  22  ff. 
Idols,  134  f. 

Immortality,    96-128;     in 
Greek  thought,  1 24 

Imprecatory  psalms,  78-85, 

87,  113 
Individual:    experience, 

27  ff , ;  responsibility  of,  14 

Inspiration,  80 
Integrity,  76 
Ishtar,  115 

Jephthah,  55  f. 
Jeremiah,  103 
Justice,  83  f.,  147 

Lex  talionis,  82 

Life  af  terdeath,i4  f .,  96-1 28 

Maccabaean  War,  31  f.,  69 
Manual:    of  devotion,  15; 

for  mourners,  70 
Messianism,  85-90,  loi 

New  thought,  15 

Omnipotence,  132  f. 
Omniscience,  133 
Oracle  of  Yahweh,  52  f. 
Orthodox  view  of  suffering, 
70  ff.,  82 

Personality,  persistence  of, 

98 
Personification,  139 


Pilgrim  Psalms,  19  f. 

Poetry  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, 16  ff. 

Polygamy,  47  f . 

Polytheism,  56  ff.,  131  f. 

Praise,  141 

Preface  to  Psalter,  64 

Prophecy  and  immortality, 
100  f. 

Psahns  of  Ascents,  19  f. 

Repentance  in  Psalter,  74- 
77 

Resurrection,  97, 102-4, 124 

Revisions  of  Old  Testa- 
ment, 5  f. 

Righteousness,  113,  148 

Saul  and  David,  53  f. 
Saul   and    the    Gibeonites, 

50  f. 
Servant  Songs,  71 
Sheol,  no.  III.  112,  120 
Solomon,  36  f. 
Suffering,  13,  63-95 
Superscriptions  of  psalms, 

8f.,  33»  38;    in  Septua- 

gint,  9  f.,  S3 

Teraphim,  53 
Thought  of  psalms,  13 

Wicked,  119  ff. 


INDEX  OF  BIBLICAL  PASSAGES 


Gen.      S :  24     1 20 

Exod.  21:6    99 
23:17     115 
33:17-23     116 

Num.  chap.  12     116  f. 

Deut.  4:12,  15     116 

Judg.  chap.  II     55 

I  Sam.    1:22    99 

14: 18  f.,  36-42    52 
19:12  ff.    S3 
21:2-10    44 
22:20-22    44 
23 : 2    42 

23:4,5,9-13     52 
chap.  26    $^  f. 
28:7-20    97 

II  Sam.    1:19-27    39  f. 

2:1    42,52 
3-'2-4    47 
3:27f.     46 

3'3S^'     39 
5:13-16    48 
5:19,22-24    52 

chap.  6    42 
6:12-23    49 

12:1-25    42 

iS:7ff.     57 
18: 14!.     46 
20:3     47 
20:8  f,     46 
21:1-4    50 

23:15  ff.     43 
chap.  24    51 
24:1     6 
24:13,14,18    42 


IKmgs    2:5-9    4Sf.,  47 
15:14    6 
17:17-24    97 
22:43     6 

II  Kings    4:18-37    97 
12:21     7 
i3:2of.     97  f. 
17:25     56f. 

I  Chron.    9:4-34    2 

15:16-24     2 
16:4-36     2 
21:1     6 

II  Chron.  14:5     7 

17:6    7 
24:26    7 

Job  10:18-22  105  f. 
14:7-22  105  ff. 
19:25!.     108  f- 

Psahns    1-41     10,  11 

1  71  f.,  147 
1:17     140 

2  88  f. 
2:4     139 
2:5,  12     140 
3:4  ff.     138 
4:4    147 
4:9     138 

S:ii     139 

5:12,13     138 

6:5     109,  141 

6:6     141 

6:10     138 

7:7     140 

7:9     138, 143, 146 

7:10     146 

8:4     133 


165 


1 66  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 


Psalms   9    i8 

Psalms  25     18 

9:5,9,20   138,143, 

25:7,11     153 

146 

25:8     146 

9:13     111,149 

25:18     153 

9:18    109 

27    138 

10    18 

27:1     128 

10:1-13     141 

27:4    38 

10:7,8    149 

27:8    140 

10:11     114 

28:7     144 

11:7    114,  140,  146 

29:3^-     ^Z^ 

13     26 

30:3     III 

14    8,  II 

30:4    109,  112 

14:3     140 

30:5     117 

14:6     149 

30:6     140 

IS     48, 49 

30 : 8     140 

15:1,2     147 

30:9     109 

16     120 

30:9,  10     141 

16:2,  II     152 

31     74 

16:10     III 

31:2-4    8 

17:5     140 

31:3     140 

17:13-15     112  f. 

31:4     144 

17:15     152 

31:18     109 

18:9,  16     140 

31:20     147 

18:27     142 

31:24     138 

18:31     138 

32     74 

18:32     134 

32:1,  2     154 

18:36     140 

32:4     140 

18:47     144 

32:5     153 

18:48     140 

32:8     140 

19:1-4     132!. 

ZZ    9 

19:15     144 

33:6ff.     133 

20:7     140 

33:6,18     140 

21:9,  10     140 

33 :  10  f .     146 

22     77 

33:19     III 

22:1-11     150!. 

33:20     144 

22:4     145 

34     18 

22:25     114,149 

34:8     137 

22:29     133,143 

34:i6f.     140 

23     149,  152 

34:19     154 

23:6     no 

35:5,16     137 

24:1     133,143 

35:19-28    87 

24:2     133 

35:23     114,140 

24:8-10     144 

35:275.     141 

Index  of  Psalms 


167 


Psalms  36:6,  8,  II  149 
Z7     18 

37-"4,  22  147 
37:22,  28-35,  38 

109 
37:40  138 
39:5-14  117  f. 

40:5  147 
40:6  134 

40:8  152 
40:10-12  141 
40:14-18  8 

41:4  ISO 
41:12  8 
42-83  II 
42:1  152 

42:5.  II  8 
42:23  128 

43  9 
43:5  8 

44  ••24  114 
44 : 26  I 14 
46:1,2,7,11  21 
46:2-4  91 
49:5-20  118  ff. 
49:6-13  no 

SI  74 

Si:  iff.  153 

SS     8,  II 

ss   78 

55:24  109 
56:13  III 
57:8-12  8 
59:6  114 
60  7S 
60:7-14  8 
67  9 

69  76,  78 
69:16  109 
69:20-29  78  f. 

70  8 

71  9 
71:1-3  8 


Psalms  72:18,  19  8 

73  27 

73:1  147 
73:20  117,  140 
73:22-26  121  ff. 
73:23-28  150 
73 : 27  139 
73-^^     152 
74:1  139 
74:2  138 
74 :  10  f.  141 
74:12  143 

74:13-17  133 
74:18,  22  f.  140 
7S:8  143 
76:6  117 
76:8-13  144  f. 

77:14  134 
77:17-20  133,144 
78  18,  133 
78:12-16  133,144 
78:38/.  148 
78 : 65  140 
78:69  133 

79:9-13  140 
80:2  138 
80:4  140 
80 : 18  140 
82  135  f. 
82:1,8  143 

^3     7^ 
83:17-19  87 
83 :  19  141 
84-150  10,  II 

84:4  143 
84:12  144 

85:3  148 
85:15  146 
86:5  146,  148 
86:8  134 
86:13  III 
86:15  148 
87:2  138 


1 68  The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 


88:1,15    144 

Psalms  96: 9     144 

88 : 5-7, 10, 1 2  f.  109 

96:10    143 

88:6  £f.     153 

96:10-13  88,138,143 

88:ioff.     141  f. 

97:1     143 

89:1,15     148 

97:35.     139,144 

89:7,9     134 

97:7     13s 

89:10-14     133 

97:10    110,150 

89:39-52     141 

97:12    14s 

89:47  f.      no,  III 

98:1     140,145 

89:51     8 

98:1-3     148 

90:1-4     134 

98:6     143 

9o:7flf.     139,140 

98:9     143,  146 

90:13     142 

99:1     141,143 

90:14-18    86  f. 

99:3     144,  145 

90:17     148 

99:5,9     145 

90:21     133 

99:8     140,  148 

91     9 

100:3     133 

91:1-4     150 

100:5     148,149 

91:2     144 

102     24,  25 

91:9     141 

102:3     140 

91:11  f.     137 

102:11     139 

91:16     no,  112 

102:16     140 

92:3     149 

io2:2of,     141 

92:16     146 

102:25-28     134 

93-99    9 

102:26     133 

93:1     143 

103:1     145 

93:4^  T^SZ 

103:3     148,  150 

94:11.     140 

103:4     148 

94:2     143 

103:5     no 

94:7     138 

103:6-14     149 

94:8-11     133 

103:6,  17    146.  148 

94:14,  22     138 

103:11,13,14    148 

94:17-19     149 

103:19,22     143 

94:22f.     144 

103: 20  f.     137 

94:23     139 

104    9 

95: I     144 

104:10-30     133 

95:3^  143 

105     2,  18 

95:41-     133 

105:4     140 

95:10     140 

105:8     134 

95:11     142 

105:9,  10     142 

96     2 

105:12-44     133 

96:4     135 

106     2,  18 

96:5     133,134 

106:1     148 

Index  of  Psalms 


169 


Psalms 


106:8    140 

Psalms  118     25 

106:23     140 

118:1-4,  29    148 

106:26     142 

118:8,  9     144 

106:40     139 

118:15,  16     140 

106:45    138 

118:17     109,  no 

106:47     8 

119     19,  27 

107:1,8,15,21     148 

119:68,  77     148 

107:235.     133 

119:88,90,138    149 

107:31,43     148 

119:120     144 

108:2-6    8 

119:124,156     148 

108:5     148 

119:125     140 

108 : 7-14    8 

119:175     109 

108:8     145 

121     7 

108:12     139 

121:2     133 

109     78 

121:4     138 

109 : 6-1 7     79  f . 

122    38 

109:21,27    140,148 

123:1     141,143 

109 : 26     148 

124     19,  20,  21,  26 

110:4     142 

124:8     133 

110:6     138,  143 

128     72 

III     18 

129     21 

111:4     148 

130     26 

111:5     138 

130:4,  7     148 

111:7,8     146 

132     142 

111:9     144  f. 

132:11     142 

112     18 

134:3     133 

112:4     146,  148 

135:5,  15-18     135 

113:5     134 

135:6     133 

114:7     144 

135:14     142 

115:1     148 

135:21     141 

115:2     140 

136    18,  133,  148 

115:3-8     134  f. 

137     9,  10,  21,  38, 

115:3, 16     141 

65,78 

115:9-11     144 

137:75.     140 

115:15     133 

138:2     38,148 

115:17     109 

138:7     140 

115:17!.     141 

138:8     148 

116     29,  30 

139     59 

116:2     140 

139:1-6,75.     133. 

116:3,  15     no 

146 

116:5     146,  148 

143:1,2     147 

116:12     150 

143:7     140 

117:2     148 

143:7,8     117 

170          The  Religion  of  the  Psalms 

Psalms  143:11     139,  140  Isa.  26:17,  18    69 

145     18  26:19     124 

145:1-13     143  chaps    40-55     24,   64, 

145:3     ^d>2>  66     71,113,138 

145:8,  17     149  chap.  53     14 

145:9     148  Ezek.  chap.  37    102  fif, 

145:13     134  Dan.    8:11  ff.     2 
146-48     9 

A  7  12:23     124 

146:6     133  "^         ^ 

146:7-9     148  Nahum  chap.  2    18 

146:10     134,143  Hab.  chap.  3    93! 

147:5,8,   9,    16-18  ^^^^^^     ^^ 

147:11     149  '='2     ^^ 

148:5-13     133  Zech.  3:8    68 

150     8  4:7-9    68 

Isa.    1:19,  20    70  6:9-13    68 

8:iQ,  20    100  Mai.  2:17    69 


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t  17  ':^^ 

Ap  la  '42 

-J.A    4     ^     ' 

14 

1 

'?' 

jj^fllT  V^ 

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